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Class 

Book. 

Copyright )J^_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE PICTURESQUE 
ST. LAWRENCE 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd 

TORONTO 



Beside the St. Lazvrence at Kingrston 



PICTURESQUE 
ST. LAWRENCE 



WRITTEN AND 
ILLUSTRATED BT 
CLIFTON JOHNSON 



PICTURESQUE 
RIVER SERIES 




THE MACMILL'AN COMPANY 

New Tork igio 
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LIMITED 



Copyright, IQIO, 

by The Macmillan Company. 



Published April, 1910 



THE PICTURESQUE 
ST. LAWRENCE 



Electrotyped 

and 

Printed 

by The 

F. A. Bassette Company 

Springfield, Mass. 



(LCV^'^ 



5I54O 



Contents 



I. 


The Earliest Explorers 


I 


11. 


The Thousand Islands 


21 


III. 


The Rapids 


41 


IV. 


Early Montreal 


74 


V. 


The Montreal of Today . 


92 


VI. 


The Ottawa .... 


106 


VII. 


The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 


124 


VIII. 


The Historic St. Francis 


144 


IX. 


Quebec's Eventful History 


156 


X. 


The Quebec of the Present 


187 


XL 


From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 


205 


XII. 


The Beautiful Saguenay . 


229 


XIII. 


The St. Lawrence in Winter 


240 



Illustrations 

Beside the St. Lawrence at Kingston Frontispiece 

FACUNG PAOB 

Montreal and Mount Royal as seen from 

Helen's Isle ...... 4 

The mountainous northern shore of lower 

river q 

Quebec Citadel and Lower town in winter . 16 

The Tadousac landing at the mouth of the 
Saguenay ..... 

Gateway to Fort Frontenac 

The first of the Thousand Islands near King- 
ston ...... 

The historic lighthouse at Prescott 

The Long Sauk Rapids 

Church and priest's house at St. Regis 

On the shores of Lake St. Louis 

Lachine 

An old farmhouse .... 

Sailing vessels at the Montreal wharves 

The Chateau de Ramezay . 

The Place d' Armes and Notre Dame Cathe- 
dral 

At the entrance to the Lachine Canal . 



21 
25 

36 
41 
48 

sr 

56 
65 

68 
73 



80 
85 



Illustrations 



In the marketplace near the Nelson Mon- 
ument ....... 88 

The river road on Montreal Island . . 97 ' 

The Lake of the Two Mountains . . 104 

Looking across the Ottawa toward the parlia- 
ment buildings . . . . .113 

The River Rideau near Ottawa . . . 116 

A field on the borders of a village . . 121 

Old Fort Chambly 128 

A Lake Champlain ferryboat . . -133 

Fort Frederic at Crown Point . . .136 

The waterfalls at the entrance to the Ausable 

Chasm ....... 145 

Near the head of tide-water above Three 

Rivers ....... 153 

On the St. Francis at Sherbrooke 160 

The citadel crowned height of Quebec 164 

A byway adjoining the Basilica . . . 168 

Cape Diamond ...... 177"^ 

Wolfe's Cove ...... 181 

Overlooking the St. Lawrence from the Plains 

of Abraham . . . . . .184 

The Champlain Monument . . . 193 

Sous le Cap Street . . . . .197 

Quebec — A Caleche . . . . . 200 

Saint Anne de Beaupre .... 209 

The sacred stairway . . . . .212 

The Isle of Hazels as seen from Les Eboule- 

ments ....... 216 



Illustrations 


xi 


The Falls of Montmorency 


225 


On the Saguenay Steamer . 


228 


Chicoutimi ..... 


232 


Cape Eternity and Cape Trinity . 


241 


The road up Mount Royal . 


245 


Snowbound ..... 


246 


February in a country village 


250 



Introductory Note 

It is believed that the volumes in this Pic- 
turesque River Series are sufficiently compre- 
hensive in their text to make them distinctly 
valuable as guide books; and at the same time 
they are compact enough in size not to be burden- 
some to those who v^ish to carry them in trunk 
or bag. There is, of course, no attempt to give 
a detailed catalog of all the charms of any par- 
ticular stream, for that could only be done at a 
sacrifice of readableness. But the more striking 
features — picturesque, historic, literary, legend- 
ary — have received ample attention. A great 
variety of volumes more or less closely related 
to the story of each river has been consulted, 
and many fragments of fact and fancy have 
been culled from such sources and woven into the 
text of the present series; but there is also 
included much which is the result of personal 
observation, and of contact with chance ac- 
quaintances, who furnish to every traveller a 
great deal of the pleasure and human interest 
of any particular journey. 



The numerous pictures were all made espe- 
cially for these books with the intent of supplying 
an attractive summary of each stream's indiv- 
uality. All in all, the books, both in their 
literary and pictorial features, are of such a 
character that they should be of general interest 
and in a marked degree serviceable to whoever 
wishes to make a journey beside or on any of 
the rivers that find place ill this series. 



The Picturesque St. Lawrence 
I 

THE EARLIEST EXPLORERS 

THE St. Lawrence, measured from its most 
distant source, is over two thousand miles 
long, but ordinarily the name is only applied to 
the seven hundred miles between Lake Ontario 
and the Gulf. It drains an immense portion of 
North America, and the amount of water it 
carries to the ocean is exceeded by no other river 
on the globe except the Amazon. Nearly all 
its feeders are clear woodland trout or salmon 
streams, and its purity is no less remarkable 
than its volume. Its waters shake the earth at 
Niagara; and "The Great Lakes are its camp- 
ing grounds, where its hosts repose under the 
sun and stars in areas like that of states and 
kingdoms." 

The breadth of its upper course is seldom 
less than a mile, and in several places there are 
expansions of such extent that they have re- 
ceived the name of lake. Below Quebec it has 



2 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

a width of from twenty to thirty miles. The 
influence of the tide is felt more than five hun- 
dred miles from the gulf, and the river is navi- 
gable for large sea-going vessels to Montreal, 
eighty miles farther inland. Rapids interrupt 
progress in the river itself beyond that point, 
but by the aid of canals continuous water com- 
munication is obtained to the head of Lake 
Superior. Indeed, taking the river, the canals 
and lakes together, this is the grandest system 
of inland navigation in the world. 

Some of the river's tributaries are themselves 
of notable size. The largest are the Ottawa 
and the Saguenay, which flow into it from the 
north; but mention should also be made of 
those historic water thoroughfares — the Riche- 
lieu and St. Francis, which come from the south. 
As a rule, the tributary streams run a rough and 
tortuous course and abound in rapids and water- 
falls that give them beauty and often furnish 
valuable power. 

The streams were the main highways of the 
savages, and they built their villages on the 
banks, fished in the waters and hunted in the 
neighboring woodlands. The Indians had no 
horses or other beasts of burden, and this lack, 
as much as the difficulties of the wilderness. 



The Earliest Explorers 3 

hindered their travel by land. Their journey- 
ing was therefore largely confined to the lakes 
and streams leaving no trail by which their move- 
ments could be traced, except where they carried 
their light birch-bark canoes around rapids or 
falls, or where a portage was necessary from one 
waterway to another. 

The rivers and the lakes in like manner 
served the early comers from Europe when they 
wanted to penetrate inland, and on their banks 
were established the homes of such settlers as 
ventured away from the seacoast. Under these 
conditions it is only natural that the whole 
history of Canada should be closely interwoven 
with that of the St. Lawrence, and it was by 
way of this stream that the poineers from France 
overran a great part of the interior of the 
continent before the settlers of the Atlantic 
Coast had crossed the Appalachians. 

Within a few years after Columbus made his 
first voyage to the New World, the French 
fishing boats began to frequent the cod-banks 
of Newfoundland. This fishery soon became 
well established, and as early as 15 17 no less 
than fifty Spanish, French and Portuguese 
vessels were engaged in it at the same time. 
But there was little inclination on the part of the 



4 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

voyagers to make permanent settlements on the 
rocky shores that bordered the fishing grounds 
or to attempt inland exploration, for the region 
was regarded with a good deal of superstitious 
fear. Griffins were supposed to infest the 
gloomy mountains of Labrador; and fiends, 
with wings, horns and tail, were said to have 
taken possession of an island north of New- 
foundland. Voyagers passing this "Isle of 
Demons" heard the din of infernal orgies; and 
the mariners who had occasion to set foot on its 
shores would never venture alone into the 
haunted woods. It was even affirmed that the 
Indians had abandoned the island, so tormented 
were they by the imps of darkness. 

Fishermen and explorers gradually made 
known the contour of Newfoundland and the 
adjoining mainland; but the first person to go 
up the St. Lawrence was Jacques Cartier. He 
was a man who came of a family of hardy sailors, 
and had gone to sea as a mere boy. Later he 
became a corsair roaming the high seas in search 
of weaker vessels to capture, generally, though 
not always, those of a nation with which his 
own chanced to be at war; and his ideas of 
right and wrong were never very clear. When he 
sailed from France in 1534 on his earliest voyage 



The Earliest Explorers 5 

to the New World he was forty years old, with 
a well-established reputation for courage and 
energy. This venture was made in the hope of 
adding to his own and his country's prosperity 
by finding a short route to China and India. 
His two little vessels were smaller than most 
modern yachts, but they safely crossed the path- 
less waste of waters, and at the end of three 
weeks the voyagers sighted Newfoundland and 
put into a harbor to repair their ships. Then 
they sailed northward to the coast of Labrador 
which looked so dreary, even in the month of 
June, that they were persuaded it must be the 
land told of in the Bible, set apart for Cain; and 
the inhabitants were so unfriendly it seemed 
quite likely they were that outcast's descendants. 

Cartier passed between Labrador and New- 
foundland through the Straits of Belle Isle and 
cruised southward to the coast of New Bruns- 
wick where he entered Miramichi Bay. While 
there so many savages paddled out in their 
canoes to see the wonderful strangers in boats 
moving with wings that Cartier fired his cannon 
to scare them away. But the next day he went 
on shore and made friends with the chief of the 
Indians by giving him a red hat. 



6 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

When the Httle vessels resumed their voyage 
they went up the coast to the peninsula that 
thrusts out into the gulf south of the great river. 
At Gaspe, Cartier landed and planted a cross and 
took captive tv^o young Indians from far up the 
St. Lawrence who had come down to the sea to 
catch mackerel. Then he crossed to the Island 
of Anticosti, where he was actually at the en- 
trance of the river, had he only known it. But 
stormy autumn was at hand, and he bore away 
for France carrying with him, as a sample of the 
natural products of the region he had explored, 
the two Indian captives. 

The following year, in May, Cartier again 
sailed for the New World, this time with three 
vessels. His followers consisted of a mixed 
company of gentleman rovers who wanted to go, 
criminals from the jails who did not want to go, 
and the two kidnapped Indians. When the 
Atlantic had been crossed Cartier went through 
the Straits of Belle Isle just as he had on his 
previous voyage. Then he put into a small bay 
on the Labrador coast to which he gave the name 
of St. Lawrence, a name afterward applied to 
the entire gulf and to the great river beyond. 

Later, as he was sailing westward along the 
bleak coast of the Gaspe Peninsula, where to 



The Earliest Explorers 7 

the south could be seen the blue Gaspe range of 
mountains with its lofty sentinels, the Shick- 
shaws, Cartier questioned his Indians as to the 
nature of the channel before them. 

"It is a river without end," they replied. 

The breadth of the channel and the saltness 
of the water made Cartier doubt that it could 
really be a river, and he sailed on hoping he had 
found a passage to the Indies. It seemed a haz- 
ardous undertaking to go on thus with no better 
pilots than the two young Indians; but fortune 
favored, and on the first of September the voy- 
agers reached the gorge of the Saguenay with 
its towering cliffs and marvellous depth of water. 
The savage, mountainous shores of this stream 
from the north disinclined Cartier to explore in 
that direction, though his Indians told him won- 
derful stories of mines and gems that could be 
found beyond the rocky barriers. He continued 
up the St. Lawrence and anchored a few miles 
below what is now Quebec, between the northern 
shore and the richly wooded Isle of Orleans. In- 
dians came swarming from the shores paddling 
their canoes about the ships and clambering to the 
decks to gaze in bewilderment at the voyagers 
and their belongings. 



8 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Cartier received them kindly, Hstened to a 
long speech by their great chief, Donnacona, 
whom he regaled with bread and wine; and 
after his guests departed set forth in a boat to 
explore the river above. 

When he came to the west end of the Isle of 
Orleans the river again spread broad before him, 
and on ahead a mighty promontory thrust its 
rugged front out into the current from the north 
shore of the mainland. East of the crag a 
tributary joined the main stream. This was the 
river now called the St. Charles. Cartier as- 
cended it a short distance, landed, crossed the 
meadows, clambered up the rocks through the 
forest and emerged on a clearing where there 
was a squalid hamlet of bark huts. Here dwelt 
the chief that Cartier had entertained on his 
vessel, and the village was called Stadacona. 
The name, which means "a crossing on floating 
wood," originated in the fact that at high tide 
the mouth of the St. Charles was frequently so 
blocked with driftwood it could be crossed on 
foot. After satisfying their curiosity the visitors 
returned to their ships. 

The Indians said that many days' journey up 
the river was a much larger village, named 
Hochelaga; but when Cartier told them he 




*» 



The Earliest Explorers 9 

would go to see it they tried to dissuade him, 
probably because they did not wish to share 
with others the advantages of trading with the 
white men. Their arguments availed nothing, 
and they concluded to try another sort of appeal. 
One morning, the Frenchmen, looking up the 
river from their anchored ships, beheld three 
Indians attired to represent devils approaching 
in a canoe. The masqueraders were dressed in 
black and white dog skins, they had blackened 
their faces, and on their heads were antlers as 
long as a man's arm. They allowed their canoe 
to drift slowly past the ship while the chief fiend 
delivered a loud-voiced harangue. 

Then they paddled to the shore where their 
fellow-tribesmen rushed pell-mell from the bor- 
dering woods, and with shrill clamors bore them 
into the sheltering thickets. In this leafy seclu- 
sion the French heard the Indians declaiming 
in solemn conclave for a full half hour. At length 
the two young Indians who had been Cartier's 
captives came out of the bushes and enacted a 
pantomime of amazement and terror. Cartier 
shouted from the vessel to ask what was the 
matter. They replied that the god Coudouagny 
had sent to warn the French against attempting 
to ascend the river, and that if the voyagers per- 



10 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

sisted in going thither they would be overwhelmed 
with snowstorms, gales and drifting ice. 

The French replied that Coudouagny was a 
fool, and made ready for the expedition. Cartier 
set out for Hochelaga in his smallest ship and 
two open boats, accompanied by several of the 
gentlemen who had come with him from France, 
and fifty sailors. They gHded on their way 
with the forests of gay autumnal verdure on 
either hand festooned with grape-vines, and the 
water alive with, wild-fowl. The ship grounded, 
but they went on in the boats, and on the second 
of October neared Hochelaga. The Indians had 
seen them coming, and when they approached 
the shore, just below where now are Montreal's 
quays and storehouses on the southern side of 
the great island that the city occupies, they 
found a throng of savages gathered to receive 
them. As soon as the boats touched the land 
the Indians crowded around, dancing and sing- 
ing, and bestowing on the strangers gifts offish and 
maize. The natives continued to express their 
delight even after it grew dark; for the night was 
lighted up far and near with fires around which 
the savages could be seen from the French camp, 
still engaged in their revels. 



The Earliest Explorers ii 

At dawn the French started to follow a path 
leading northward through the forest that cov- 
ered the site of the future city. Presently they 
met an Indian chief with a numerous retinue, 
who greeted them courteously and invited them 
to pause and warm themselves by a fire kindled 
beside the path. When they had seated them- 
selves the chief made them a speech, and was 
requited for his eloquence by two hatchets, two 
knives, and a crucifix. Then the march was 
resumed, and soon the strangers came to open 
fields covered with ripened maize, and on beyond 
rose a steep, wooded mountain with the Indian 
town at its base. 

The town was encircled with palisades formed 
of trunks of trees set in a triple row. The middle 
row was upright, while the outer and inner ones 
inclined and crossed near the summit where 
they were lashed to a horizontal pole. On the 
inner side of the palisades were galleries for the 
defenders with rude ladders to mount to them 
and quantities of stones ready to throw down on 
the heads of assailants. When the voyagers 
entered the narrow portal they found about half 
a hundred large oblong dwellings, each serving 
for several families. These were fifty yards or 
so long, and twelve or fifteen wide, and had 



12 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

frames of slender poles covered with sheets of 
bark. Through the middle of each wigwam ran 
a passage with stone fireplaces at intervals and 
openings in the roof above to allow some of the 
smoke to escape. Kettles of baked clay were 
used for cooking purposes. Along the borders 
of the apartments were benches covered with 
furs to serve for beds; and on the walls hung 
sheaves of stone arrows, and occasional toma- 
hawks, flint knives, red clay pipes and dried 
human scalps. 

The dwellings were arranged about an open 
area a stone's throw in width, and here Cartier 
and his followers were surrounded by swarms of 
women and children. With their white skins, 
bearded faces and strange attire and weapons, 
they doubtless seemed demigods rather than 
men. Presently a troop of women brought mats, 
the bare earth was carpeted for the guests, and 
they sat down. Then the feminine and juvenile 
rabble was banished to a distance by the warriors, 
who squatted row on row around the whites. 
As soon as they had settled themselves the bed- 
ridden old chief of the nation, paralyzed, helpless 
and squalid, was borne on a deerskin by some 
of his subjects into the midst of the assembly 
and placed before Cartier. The aged savage 



The Earliest Explorers 13 

pointed feebly to his powerless limbs and im- 
plored the healing touch from the hand of the 
French chief. Then from the surrounding 
dwellings came a woful procession of the sick, 
the lame, the blind, carried or led forth, and all 
gathered before the perplexed commander as 
if he were a powerful magician capable of re- 
storing them to immediate health. 

The best he could do was to pronounce over 
his petitioners some verses from the Bible, make 
the sign of the cross, and utter a prayer. Then 
came a distribution of presents. Knives and 
hatchets were given to the men, and beads to 
the women, while pewter rings and other 
trinkets were thrown among the children who 
engaged in a vigorous scramble to secure these 
treasures. 

Now the French filed out of the town, and, 
accompanied by a troop of Indians, climbed to 
the top of the neighboring mountain, whence 
they could see in all directions the mantling 
forest, broken only by the cornfields just below, 
and by the broad river glistening amid the realm 
of verdure. Cartier called the height Mount 
Royal, and this same name in slightly different 
form is that of the busy city which now occupies 
the site of the old Indian town. 



14 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

The French presently returned to their boats 
and rowed away down the river. When they 
arrived at Stadacona they found that their com- 
panions had built a fort of palisades on the bank 
of the St. Charles, and close by were moored the 
ships. Here they were all soon besieged by the 
rigors of the Canadian winter. The streams were 
frozen over, and the snow blanketed everything 
with white, and drifted above the sides of the 
ships. At first the Indians came daily wading 
through the snow to the fort, but by the end of 
December their visits had almost ceased. Scurvy 
broke out among the French, and man after 
man succumbed, till twenty-five had died, and 
only three or four were left in health. The 
ground was so hard they could not bury their 
dead, and they hid the bodies in the snow-drifts. 
Cartier nailed an image of the Virgin against a 
tree, and on a Sunday summoned forth his fol- 
lowers, who, haggard and woe-begone, moved 
in feeble procession to the spot. There they 
knelt in the snow before the holy symbol and 
sang litanies and psalms. That day another of 
the party died. 

There was fear that the Indians, hearing of 
the weakness of the whites, might finish the work 
the scurvy had begun. So none were allowed to 



The Earliest Explorers 15 

approach the fort; and when a party of savages 
lingered within hearing, the invalid garrison beat 
with sticks and stones against the walls that the 
clatter might delude their dangerous neighbors 
into thinking the men in the fort were engaged 
in hard labor. One day, Cartier, walking near 
the river, met an Indian who had been suffering 
not long before with scurvy, as had many of the 
other Indians. He was .now in high health and 
spirits. Cartier asked him by what means he 
had been cured, and the Indian replied it was 
by drinking a decoction made from the leaves 
of the arbor-vitae. As soon as possible, after 
Cartier had returned and reported at the fort, a 
copious quantity of this healing draught was 
prepared. The men drank freely and health and 
hope began to revisit the hapless company. 

The winter at last wore away, the ships were 
released from the grip of the ice, and the French 
made ready to sail for France. Cartier wanted 
to take back some of the natives to tell of the 
marvels of the region he had discovered, and as 
he knew they would not go of their own free will, 
he lured Donnacona and several of his chiefs to 
the fort where he had them seized and hurried 
on board the ships. Then the voyagers erected 
a cross on the bank of the stream, raised the flag 



1 6 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

of France near by and sailed away down the 
river. The tribesmen of Donnacona followed 
in their canoes as far as the Isle of Hazels begging 
for the release of the kidnapped chiefs, but 
without avail. Cartier kept on his course and 
reached France in midsummer. 

In his account of this year in the New World 
he calls the St. Lawrence "the River of Hoche- 
laga," or "the great river of Canada." Canada 
was an Indian word equivalent to town or 
village and was at first applied by the French to 
only a limited portion of the valley about Stada- 
cona. But the extent of territory it covered was 
gradually enlarged until it now embraces all 
the British dominions in North America except 
Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Five years passed, and we find Cartier for a 
third time on his way across the Atlantic. "We 
have resolved," said the king, **to send him 
again to the lands of Canada and Hochelaga, 
which form the extremity of Asia toward the 
west." The object of the expedition was dis- 
covery, settlement, and the conversion of the 
Indians. 

In the course of time Cartier*s fleet of five 
ships cast anchor beneath the cliffs of Quebec. 
Canoes came out from the shore filled with 




o 



©/ 



The Earliest Explorers 17 

feathered savages inquiring for their kidnapped 
chiefs. But Gartier answered evasively. As a 
matter of fact the captives had all died within a 
year or two, though he only acknowledged the 
death of Donnacona and declared that the others 
had married white women and were so contented 
with their new life that they had refused to come 
back. 

The French presently went a few miles farther 
up the river to Cap Rouge where they landed. 
Here they picked up quartz crystals on the shore 
and thought them diamonds, rambled through 
the tall grass of the meadow in an adjacent glen 
that opened back inland, climbed the steep 
promontory whence they looked down on the 
neighboring wooded slopes, and in a quarry 
of slate gathered scales of a yellow mineral 
that glistened like gold. Later they cleared off 
a patch of woods, sowed some turnip seed, cut 
a zigzag road up the height, and built two forts, 
one at the summit and one on the shore below. 

A nobleman named Roberval was to follow 
Cartier from France and reinforce his expedition; 
and after considerable delay, he set sail with 
three ships and two hundred colonists. But 
hardly had he crossed the Atlantic when he met 
Carrier's fleet on its way home. What prompted 



1 8 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

so resolute a man as Carder to thus abandon the 
New World is not known. Roberval ordered 
him to return, but under cover of night Cartier 
slipped away and continued his voyage to France. 
Roberval had a mixed company of nobles, 
soldiers, sailors and adventurers, and a number 
of women and children. Among the women was 
a very comely maiden named Marguerite, a 
niece of Roberval himself. The same ship in 
which she sailed carried a young gentleman who 
had embarked for love of her, and she loved him. 
This was not to Roberval's liking. He demanded 
that they should renounce each other, but the 
lovers defied him, and in his rage he anchored 
off the Isle of Demons, landed Marguerite with 
an old Norman nurse who had taken the lovers' 
part, gave them four arquebuses for their defence 
and left them to their fate. Roberval thought 
he had effectually separated the maiden and her 
betrothed but the young man threw himself into 
the sea, and by desperate effort gained the shore. 
The ship sailed on its way, and, during the 
long months that followed, the three dwellers 
on the island contrived to subsist on beasts and 
birds shot with the arquebuses. In the course 
of a year a child was born to Marguerite, the 
first child born of European parentage in all the 



The Earliest Explorers 19 

vast domain now known as British North Amer- 
ica. Soon afterward the father of the babe died, 
and the two women laid him to rest as best they 
could. A few months later the child died also, 
and its little body was buried beside that of its 
father. The old nurse did not survive much 
longer, and then Marguerite was left alone. 
Sometimes the white bears prowled around her 
dwelling, and she shot three. Sometimes the 
demons assailed her, but she discharged her 
guns at them and they retired with shrieks and 
threats. Two years and five months after she 
landed on the island, she saw a small fishing- 
craft far out at sea and hastily made a fire to 
attract its attention. The crew presently ob- 
served the column of smoke curling upward from 
the haunted shore, and they warily drew near, 
until they descried a woman in wild attire waving 
signals to them. So they took Marguerite from 
the island, and she went with them back to 
France. 

Her uncle had gone on up the St. Lawrence and 
started a settlement in the wilderness at Cap 
Rouge. On the height where Carrier had in- 
trenched himself Roberval erected a castle-like 
structure with two spacious halls, a kitchen, 
chambers, storerooms, workshops, cellars, a well. 



20 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

an oven and two water-mills. Here all the colony 
dwelt under the same roof. At length two of 
the ships sailed for home, and winter came on. 
Then the colony found that though they had 
storehouses there were no stores; they had mills, 
but no grist; an ample oven, yet lacked bread. 
They bought fish of the Indians, and dug roots 
which they boiled in whale-oil. Disease broke 
out, and before spring a third of the settlers had 
died. Roberval ruled his followers with a rod 
of iron. The quarrels of the men and the scold- 
ing of the women were alike punished at the 
whipping-post, "by which means they lived in 
peace." An attempt to explore the upper river 
resulted in the loss of eight men, and the whole 
experience of the colony was so dismal that the 
remnants presently returned to their native land. 
Of the final fate of Roberval there are con- 
flicting accounts. The most interesting one is to 
the effect that he made another voyage to the 
New World and went up the Saguenay; and it 
is affirmed by the natives that he and his follow- 
ers have never returned but are still wandering 
somewhere in the interior. 



II 



THE THOUSAND ISLANDS 

/^N THE Canadian side of the river, where 
^^ the St. Lawrence leaves Lake Ontario and 
begins to thread its way among the intricacies of 
the Thousand Islands, stands the historic city 
of Kingston. Here was established a wilderness 
outpost in the days of the early French dominion. 
Count Frontenac, then Governor of New France^ 
selected the site in 1673 and erected a strong^ 
wooden blockhouse to protect the fur trade be- 
tween Montreal and the northwestern wilds. 
Accompanied by about four hundred men, in- 
cluding a considerable proportion of mission 
Indians, he came himself from Quebec to see the 
work done. The journey was made in a hundred 
and twenty canoes and two large flat-boats. 
These flat-boats were painted with strange de^ 
vices in red and blue that the Iroquois who had 
been invited to a council might be dazzled by the 
unwonted display of splendor. 

The council met where the city now is, and 
there was speech-making and much flattery and 



22 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

many fine promises. Frontenac gave presents of 
guns and tobacco to the braves, and raisins to 
the women and children; and in the evenings 
he feasted the squaws to make them dance. 

Meanwhile Frontenac's followers had begun 
the fort. Some cut down trees, some dug the 
trenches, some hewed the palisades; and the 
Iroquois were greatly astonished at the orderli- 
ness and alacrity with which the work proceeded. 
When Fort Frontenac, as it was called, had been 
completed, a guard was left in the lonely outpost 
provisioned for a twelve-month, and the rest of 
the expedition departed down the river. 

The next year, by act of the King of France, 
Fort Frontenac and its vicinity was turned over 
to La Salle, the future explorer of the Mississippi, 
on condition that he pay back ten thousand 
francs the fort had cost the king, maintain the 
stronghold at his own charge, form a French 
colony about it, build a church whenever the 
inhabitants should reach one hundred, and form 
a settlement of domesticated Indians in the 
neighborhood. 

La Salle promptly accepted the responsibility, 
began his tasks, and was in a fair way to make 
his fortune, so favorable was the situation for 
the fur trade. He was master of all around him, 



The Thousand Islands 23 

the nearest settlement being a week's journey 
distant. Within two years he demolished the 
original fort and replaced it with another that 
had ramparts and bastions of stone on the land 
side, and palisades fronting the water. Nine 
small cannon were mounted on the walls. It 
contained barracks, a forge, a well, a mill and a 
bakery. About fifteen persons constituted the 
garrison, and there were in addition two or 
three score laborers and canoe-men, the latter 
reputed to be the best in America. Along the 
shore south of the fort was a small hamlet of 
French farms, and farther on, a village of Iro- 
quois whom La Salle had persuaded to settle 
here. Considerable land had been cleared and 
planted, cattle, swine and fowls had been brought 
up from Montreal, and three small vessels had 
been built to ply on the lake in the interest of the 
fur trade. 

But the autocrat of this little empire was not 
content. He would explore the great valley of 
the Mississippi and add it to the French domain 
in the New World. So late in the year 1678 he 
left all prospects of wealth and comfort and 
began the long journey that was to end only 
with his death in the wilds of Texas. 



24 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

The years passed without any events of serious 
significance occurring at Fort Frontenac until 
1687. There had been, however, a good deal of 
trouble with the Iroquois, and the French became 
suspicious of the inhabitants of two Indian 
villages on the north shore of Lake Ontario. 
These Indians had maintained a strict neutrality 
and were in the habit of hunting and fishing for 
the Frontenac garrison. But now the French 
invited them to the fort for a feast, and they 
came to the number of thirty men and about 
ninety women and children. All were seized, 
and a raiding party from the fort secured nearly 
as many more. The warriors were tied to a 
row of posts inside of the fort, and one witness 
declared that they were fastened by the neck, 
hands and feet in such a way that they could 
neither sleep nor drive off the mosquitoes. To 
make matters worse, some of the Christian Indi- 
ans from down the river amused themselves 
by burning the fingers of the unfortunates in 
the bowls of their pipes. Most of them were 
eventually sent to France to share with convicts 
and heretics the horrible slavery of the royal 
galleys. As for the women and children, many 
died at the fort, and the rest were baptized and 
distributed among the mission villages. 




e; 



The Thousand Islands 25 

The following year the Iroquois and their 
allies the English, threatened reprisal, and an 
urgent entreaty was dispatched to the French 
king begging him to send back the prisoners 
who had gone to the galleys. The letter was 
written by the governor, and it contained these 
words: 'Tf ill-treatment has caused them all to 
die — for they are people who easily fall into 
dejection, and who die of it — and if none of them 
come back, I do not know whether we can per- 
suade these barbarians not to attack us." 

Thirteen of the captives were finally sent back 
from France gorgeously clad, and returned to 
their people. But before they arrived affairs in 
the valley of the St. Lawrence had become so 
critical that orders were sent to have the com- 
mandant of Fort Frontenac destroy and desert 
the stronghold. The garrison presently reached 
Montreal where they reported that they had 
set fire to everything in the fort that would burn, 
sunk three vessels belonging to it in the lake, 
mined the walls, and left matches burning in the 
powder magazine. After they had started on 
their journey they heard the explosion. But it 
was learned later that the destruction was far 
from complete, and a large quantity of stores 
and munitions fell into the hands of the Iroquois. 



26 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

The fort remained a ruin for seven years, and 
then it was repaired and once more garrisoned. 
It did not suffer again in the hazards of war 
until 1758 when it capitulated to an English ex- 
pedition from Oswego. The victors carried off 
as much plunder as they could, and burned the 
rest or gave it to their Indian allies. Besides 
battering the fort to pieces they destroyed the 
surrounding buildings and the shipping and left 
only desolation behind. 

Such is the early story of Kingston, the most 
important town on the St. Lawrence above 
Montreal. The city of today is a place of some 
fifteen thousand inhabitants. Its military col- 
lege, its massive forts and its martello towers 
make it "the West Point of Canada." In the 
town itself is Fort Frontenac near the waterside, 
and on a height of a neighboring island that is 
connected with the city by a quaint wooden toll- 
bridge, is Fort Henry. Both forts are of gray, 
weather-stained stone which gives them an ap- 
pearance of great age. One of the martello 
towers is right in the harbor. The typical tower 
of this type is a circular structure of masonry 
erected to repel the approach of an enemy by 
water, and has on the summit a gun mounted 
on a revolving platform so it can be fired in any 



The Thousand Islands 27 

direction. The Kingston towers were originally 
capable of doing very effective v^ork in repelling 
marauding Yankees, and they still look grim and 
menacing and ready to deal out dire destruction, 
but in modern v^arfare they probably have little 
value. 

As seen from the harbor Kingston presents a 
particularly attractive appearance with its spires 
and domes rising from amid the green foliage, 
and the steamships and slender-masted sailing 
vessels and numerous minor craft along its water- 
front. The place is very compact, and it is 
astonishing on a pleasant evening to see how 
full the chief street is of people. Most of the 
stores are closed, but the younger portion of the 
inhabitants seems to be out, nevertheless. The 
saloons and tobacco shops are busy, and the 
moving picture " theatoriums " are generously 
patronized; yet in the main the populace is just 
strolling. I imagined that many of them might 
resort to the public library, but this institution 
is merely a large dismal room over a store where 
I found only a scant dozen readers. The books 
were caged off in an alcove, and the battered old 
reading tables and tattered magazines were far 
from being cheerfully attractive. An American 



28 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

town of the same size would have a fine building 
and an extensive collection of books. 

Perhaps the feature of Kingston that I en- 
joyed most was a park deeply shadowed with 
trees, and open on one side to Lake Ontario. 
It was delightful to linger there by the shore on 
a sunny afternoon, cooled by the breeze, watch- 
ing the limpid waves beat on the low rocky 
beach. The water was wonderfully clear, and 
it enters the St. Lawrence as pure as a mountain 
spring. 

To the south were the first of the Thousand 
Islands. These islands, which, as a matter of 
fact, number 1692, extend from Lake Ontario 
to Prescott, fifty miles below. Some authorities 
say they begin with a group west of Kingston 
known as the Three Brothers, and end at Brock- 
ville with the Three Sisters. But there are other 
islands which dispute the claims of these. Some 
people disregard the Three Brothers entirely be- 
cause they are several miles out in the lake, and 
declare that the rightful leader of the procession 
is Whiskey Island, overlooked by the grim strong- 
hold of Fort Henry. 

You could heave a stone from one end of 
Whiskey Island to the other; yet there are some 
isles in the archipelago so much smaller than this 



The Thousand Islands 29 

as to be mere dimples on the surface of the broad 
river and supporting not the least verdure on 
their barren rocks. Other islands are large, 
fertile areas crov^ned v^ith lofty trees and con- 
taining hundreds of acres of v^ell-cultivated 
farms. Occasionally a single farmer ov^ns an 
entire island of a suitable size to support him 
and keep him busy. One such owner with whom 
I talked thought this quite an ideal arrangement. 
He had no line fences to maintain, and if he 
exterminated the weeds he knew they would not 
come in again by someone else's neglect. Boats 
furnish easy means of travel from the islands to 
the mainland in the warm months, and in winter 
the channels are thickly sheeted with ice, on 
which the islanders journey freely back and 
forth. 

The steamers that make the down-river trips 
through the islands leave Kingston at a very 
early hour, and on the autumn day that I went 
over the route the morn was still dusky and 
starlit when I went on board. But soon after we 
started the sun came up in the red eastern haze, 
and sent its warm level beams over the broad 
expanse of the river. We continued among the 
islands for four or five hours, yet much of the 
time so large were they that it seemed as if we 



30 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

were sailing down a stream with mainland on 
either side. At other times we were amid clusters 
of the lesser islands, many of which are owned 
by wealthy people who have built fine residences 
on them and laid out tasteful grounds. These 
summer homes represent all kinds of domiciles 
from the modest cottage of the camper to the 
imposing castle of the millionaire. Occasionally 
a little bridge connected islets, and the waterside 
was buttressed with a stout stone wall that fol- 
lowed in a sinuous line the natural contour of 
the shore. The turf and the trees too, were 
groomed into a park-like aspect, and it was all 
very pretty and pleasant. But I preferred those 
islands that were still in a wild state of nature, 
with bristling firs and pines crowning their 
rugged rocks. As a whole they are mild and 
low-lying and make no very striking appeal to 
the sense of sight, though admirers declare them 
to be the most picturesque archipelago in the 
world. Their chief attraction consists in the 
constant changes of scene, daintiness of form, 
and the turning and intersecting of the trans- 
parent waterways gliding placidly between. 
That they should be healthful and have charm 
for a summer resort with that cool flow of crys- 
talline water always about them is no wonder. 



The Thousand Islands 31 

The river in this vicinity is remarkably 
equable, never in flood and never much affected 
by droughts. Seven feet is its greatest variation 
between a time of unusual rainfall, and a season 
that is extremely dry. But the level of the 
stream is also influenced by strong prevailing 
winds blowing up or down the lake; and as a 
result there have been instances of rapid fall, 
followed by a returning wave of extraordinary 
height. 

What the Indians thought of the islands can 
be judged from the fact that they called them 
"The Garden of the Great Spirit." The prime- 
val forest of the region abounded with deer and 
other game, the waters teemed with fish, and its 
little bays and islets were the haunts of numerous 
waterfowl — could anything be more delectable 
to the red hunter than such a land of plenty ? 

Another poetic fancy with regard to the islands 
refers us back to the time when Adam and Eve 
were driven from the Garden of Eden. We are 
told that Eden itself was borne away by the 
white-winged angels to the eternal spheres on 
high; but in passing through space there flut- 
tered down to earth some flowers from the 
divine garden. Most of them fell into the broad 
outlet of Lake Ontario and there became the 



32 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Thousand Islands — the paradise of the St. Law- 
rence. 

For unnumbered years this immediate neigh- 
borhood was the border-range of two of the most 
powerful Indian clans that inhabited the ancient 
American wilderness. North and east roamed 
the haughty Algonquins, noted as the greatest 
hunters of the land, while in the valleys to the 
south dwelt the Iroquois, who lived by fishing and 
cultivating the soil and who boasted of great 
fields of maize and extensive apple orchards. 
For many a changing season these people of the 
wilds dwelt side by side in harmony. It was 
one of the friendly customs of the young men 
of the two tribes to meet at certain times to hunt 
and fish together, with the understanding that 
whichever party killed the lesser amount of 
game animals, or speared the fewer fish, should 
dress all the spoils of the chase that were brought 
in. Usually the Iroquois were the unfortunate 
ones, and it at length became regarded as a 
certainty that they would do the "squaw'* work 
and that their rivals would enjoy running the 
game to earth with no aftermath of disagreeable 
labor. This disinclined the Iroquois to the 
sport and it was gradually being abandoned 
when, on one of the now rare occasions that the 



The Thousand Islands 33 

rivals engaged in a hunt, the Algonquins were 
astonishingly unsuccessful. For three days they 
followed their quest in vain, but the Iroquois 
came from their forest rovings with game in 
abundance. The Algonquins went sullenly 
about the unwelcome task of dressing the game, 
and so sorely did they feel their disgrace that 
they vowed among themselves to have revenge. 
Night came and while the weary Iroquois 
hunters slept, a sudden assault was made and 
every one of them slain. 

The assassins denied their deed, and not till 
long after did the friends of the dead learn the 
facts. Then they asked that justice should be 
done the slayers. The Algonquins were called 
to a council but they evaded the matter of a 
settlement, and tried to satisfy the complainants 
with honeyed words. This, however, availed 
nothing. The Iroquois, fiercely indignant, 
swore they would not rest, they nor their children 
to the last generation, until the Algonquins had 
been swept from the earth. Thus began the 
terrible feud which existed between the two 
savage races at the coming of the white men, 
and which continued to rage, drawing into its 
toils the French and the English and resulting 
in long dark years of border warfare. 



34 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

A favorite rendezvous of the Indians v^as 
Carleton Island, one of the first good-sized is- 
lands on the American side of the river. Here 
many a council of war was held and many a 
bloody raid was devised. This same island, 
during the War of the Revolution, was a famous 
place of refuge for the tories of the Middle 
Colonies. 

Perhaps the most interesting story of the 
Thousand Islands is that of the Lost Channel. 
It dates back to the time of the French and 
Indian War. An English naval and military 
expedition had started from Oswego against 
Montreal. The naval portion consisted of two 
armed vessels, the Mohawk and the Onondaga, 
and a number of boats. Soon after this flotilla 
had entered the St. Lawrence the lookout on the 
Onondaga discovered a party of French soldiers 
in a bateau putting out from Carleton Island. 
The vessel promptly started in pursuit, at the 
same time signalling the Mohawk to follow. A 
lively race of several miles ensued, and then the 
French boat disappeared down a narrow water- 
way between a large island and a group of 
smaller islands. 

The Onondaga continued to follow until a 
startling discharge of musketry from the wooded 



The Thousand Islands 35 

banks of the islands roundabout showed that it 
had sailed into a trap. The decks of the war- 
ship were swept by the leaden hail of the con- 
cealed foe, yet the English returned this fire so 
fast and furiously that the enemy was glad to 
retire. It was now necessary to find the way 
back to the main channel and to send word to 
the sister ship, which had not been seen for some 
time, to return also. For this latter duty a boat 
was dispatched under the command of Cox- 
swain Terry, who delivered the order successfully. 
Then he and his crew left the Mohawk and 
started to row to their own vessel. 

The Onondaga got back to the main channel 
and was at length rejoined by the Mohawk, but 
the coxswain's boat failed to appear. After an 
anxious period of waiting several parties were 
sent out to find the missing men. Their search, 
however, was unavailing, and when hope had 
to be abandoned the expedition went on its way. 
Nothing was ever learned of the fate of Terry 
and his crew. Probably they became bewildered 
among the maze of waterways and at last fell 
into the hands of the enemy. All we actually 
know is that the passage his boat entered after 
leaving the Mohawk has since been known as 
"The Lost Channel." 



36 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Another narrative that adds much to the 
charm of the Thousand Islands is concerned 
with the early years of the second quarter of the 
nineteenth century. The belief was at that time 
widely accepted both in Canada and the United 
States that the former country was being inflicted 
with the same abuses by the English government 
that had caused the thirteen American colonies 
to fight for their independence. A body of 
Canadian rebels established headquarters on 
Navy Island in the Niagara River, a short dis- 
tance above the falls, and from there pretended 
to rule Canada. A little sidewheel steamer, the 
Caroline, went back and forth between the 
island and Buffalo carrying provisions to the 
rebels. But one dark winter night a company of 
the *'Men of Gore" as the government troops 
guarding the Canadian shore called themselves, 
rowed across the swift and dangerous current, 
seized the Caroline as she lay at her wharf, put 
the crew ashore, set the steamer on fire and sent 
her all ablaze over Niagara Falls. As a conse- 
quence, the Navy Island rebels were starved out. 

This act roused the ire of an American who 
was familiarly called "Bill" Johnson, and who 
now became a sort of political Robin Hood 
intent to confer on Canada the boon of freedom. 






'a-i^-5##^^ 




The historic lighthouse at Prescott 



The Thousand Islands 



37 



He got together a band of outlaws, or patriots, 
if one accepts their view, and on the night of 
May 30, 1838, he and his followers, disguised as 
Indians and armed with muskets, boarded the 
Canadian steamer, Sir Robert Peel, while en 
route from Brockville to Toronto carrying 
twenty passengers and a large amount of money 
to pay off the troops in the Upper Province. 
With shouts of "Remember the Caroline!'' the 
"patriot" band forced the passengers and crew 
to take to the boats. Then the steamer was set 
on fire and left to her fate. The hull is still to 
be seen where it sank about a mile down the 
river from Thousand Island Park. 

Johnson, elated with his success, made a per- 
sonal declaration of war; but fortune favored 
him with no further conquests, and this "Pirate 
of the Thousand Islands" soon became a fugi- 
tive from justice. His daring and devoted 
daughter Kate rowed him from hiding-place to 
hiding-place, and kept him supplied with food. 
Kate at length succeeded in securing his pardon, 
and he became a lighthouse keeper. She herself 
married happily and was much loved and re- 
spected for her devotion to her father in the 
gloomy days of his outlawry. A secluded isle 
known as "The Devil's Oven" on which he was 



38 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

concealed for over a year belongs to one of her 
descendants. 

In a literary way the Thousand Islands are 
•closely linked with what is considered by many 
to be Cooper's finest story — ''The Pathfinder." 
The culminating scenes of the book are located 
on "Station Island." No island of that name is 
to be found on the maps, and the author prob- 
ably did not have any particular island in mind, 
but there seems reasonable warrant for conclud- 
ing it must have been one of those on the Canadi- 
an side above Ganonoque. 

As we move on down the river we at length 
reach Brockville. Near the east end of the town 
a bluff rises from the water's edge to a height of 
about fifty feet. This ledge with its overhanging 
shelves and clinging vines and many little caves 
is commonly spoken of as "High Rocks." At 
a point where the face of the cliff is compara- 
tively smooth tracings of a painting could be 
seen until within a few years. Formerly the 
spot was visited every spring by a band of 
Indians, who with weird ceremonies and in- 
cantations brightened the picture with fresh 
paint and departed. The picture was a rough 
representation of two white men apparently 
falling out of a canoe propelled by several 



The Thousand Islands 39 

Indians. This commemorated the following 
episode: 

Two captured English officers were being con- 
veyed by the Indians down the river to Montreal. 
As they approached Brockville a terrific storm 
arose and the boat being heavily loaded the 
Indians threw the prisoners overboard to 
lighten the canoe and at the same time appease 
the storm-god by a human sacrifice. But the 
storm-god refused to be placated. The gale 
increased in violence, and the Indians, feeling 
that they were doomed, mingled the wail of 
their death song with the howling of the hurri- 
cane. When opposite High Rocks the canoe 
went down with all its human freight, which 
included a distinguished chief. For more than 
a hundred years afterward members of the tribe 
visited the rock to renew the picture, and to 
attempt by their incantations to win back the 
favor of the Great Spirit, who was angry because 
the two officers had been drowned instead of 
being saved to burn at the stake. 

As a whole, Brockville's experience has been 
peaceful, but one winter day, in the War of 1812, 
the Americans crossed the St. Lawrence on the 
ice and raided the town, robbing houses and 
carrying off as prisoners many of the villagers. 



40 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

In retaliation the Canadians attacked the forti- 
fied American town of Ogdensburg a Httle 
farther down the river. They surprised the 
garrison, took seventy-five prisoners and burned 
the barracks and four war vessels. 

But now our steamer passes the row of little 
low-lying islets known as the Three Sisters that 
breast the current just below Brockville, and the 
Thousand Islands lie behind us, while the rapids 
are not far ahead. 




Co 



"b. 



Ill 

THE RAPIDS 

^T^HE lake steamers continue down the river 
-■- as far as Prescott. They cannot go farther 
because they are too large to run the rapids, 
which, beyond this point, occur at intervals all 
the way to Montreal. A transfer is therefore 
made to the river steamers. But Prescott itself 
is not without attractions that invite the traveller 
to loiter. On a slight elevation, a little back 
from the river is a stout, stone-walled blockhouse. 
This is surrounded by a high earthwork which 
hides all but the roof, and as the base of the 
earthwork is skirted with palisades the visitor 
who wishes to make a closer inspection of the 
fortification must seek the entrance. 

I stopped to chat with a woman who lived 
near by. The day was warm, and she was sitting 
on her piazza enjoying the comfort of a breeze 
and occasionally chatting with chance acquaint- 
ances who paused in passing along the broad 
walk in front. When I asked about the block- 
house she said: 



42 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

"Do you see that old lady going up the road 
with her cow ? She could tell you all about it. 
Her husband soldiered it in England as a young 
man, and after he came here he had charge of 
the blockhouse for forty years. One night he 
died. He'd gone to bed feeling fine, and there he 
was in the morning dead with his eyes and mouth 
tight shut, layin* on his left side, perfectly 
peaceful. It's a nice job being keeper of that 
fort. The pay is liberal, the family lives in the 
blockhouse without its costing 'em anything for 
rent, and there's free pasturage for their cows. 
Oh, they've got a good chance and don't have 
to do a tap of work. 

"Did you notice that man who just went by ? 
He's an Indian. There's a couple of Indian 
families have moved here lately. They live in 
old shabby houses, but my lands! they're stylish 
as any white people. I was tellin' Jim, my 
husband, about the way they dress; and he says 
they're very civil and well-educated. One of 
the squaws went to school in an Ottawa convent." 

In the dreamy distance across the river I could 
see the wide-spreading city of Ogdensburg. My 
companion seemed a little envious of this flour- 
ishing American city, and she complained that 
Prescott was not a bit larger than it was twenty- 



The Rapids 43 

five years ago, and t!iat enterprises started in 
the town to help its grovs^th had usually proved 
failures. Yet, why was expansion with all its 
chaos so desirable ? I thought Prescott was 
very snug and delightful, and that it would be 
difficult to improve on its quiet homes and tree- 
shadowed streets. A radical business growth 
would upset this serenity and destroy much of 
the beauty, and the place would be gentle and 
homelike no longer. 

There had been a fair in the town on the day 
of my visit, and in the evening, wherever peo- 
ple met, they were discussing its various feat- 
ures. An accident on the race course, though 
not very serious, had jarred the nerves of some 
so that their enjoyment of the occasion was a 
good deal dampened. One man who had been 
to so many fairs as to make his opinion that of 
an expert, said he thought the best thing in this 
year's fair was some trained fleas that could do 
tricks and draw little carts around on a sheet 
of paper. Another critic of the fair was a small 
girl who told how she had spent all her money 
on "the wild man" and the merry-go-round. It 
cost ten cents to go into the tent to see the 
former — "and he wasn't wild at all," she 



44 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

affirmed sorrowfully. "They had him chained, 
but he was only just a nigger." 

On the merry-go-round she had spent thirty- 
five cents making trip after trip till she reached 
the bottom of her purse. 

"Why, you crazy thing!" commented an 
older companion, "I should have thought once 
would have been enough." 

A mile down the river from the village is a 
lighthouse that is an historic landmark of ex- 
ceptional interest. It stands on an outjutting 
point and is a very sturdy and thick-walled 
structure which originally did duty as a wind- 
mill. In that earlier period of its existence it 
figured conspicuously in the closing scenes of 
what was sometimes called "the Patriot War." 
The Prescott episode was the result of a foolish 
project among some fanatics of northern New 
York to overthrow the Canadian government; 
but the war itself was inspired by the unrest of 
the people of the Dominion because their affairs 
were to a very large degree in the arbitrary 
control of the British ministry in London. Their 
own views as to the needs of the country, and 
their protests against the tyrannical and incon- 
siderate acts of the public officials counted for 
little, and at length some of the more radical of 



The Rapids 45 

the "Reformers," as they styled themselves, 
made ready to fight. 

In 1837 hostilities began with a skirmish near 
Toronto in which the militia routed the rebels. 
Other minor actions followed, and the next 
year a brave and skilful Polish soldier, Colonel 
Van Schultz, and six hundred men made ready 
in Ogdensburg for a Canadian invasion. The 
men were partly Dominion "patriots," but the 
majority of them were American adventurers. 
Only one hundred and seventy reached the north 
shore of the river. There they were caught in a 
trap; for the United States authorities seized 
their boats and they could not return, nor could 
the rest of the six hundred come to their aid. 
Soon they were hotly attacked and took refuge 
in the big stone windmill on the bluff by the 
riverside, a little beyond the eastern borders of 
Prescott village. 

There they held out for three days, and in the 
fighting thirty-six of the attacking force were 
killed, and nineteen of the besieged. At last 
cannon arrived from Kingston, and it was evi- 
dent that the windmill's walls would be battered 
down unless the invaders surrendered. So they 
gave up, and Van Schultz and eleven others were 
brought to trial and hanged. It is of interest to 



4-6 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

recall that in his will Van Schultz left ten thous- 
and dollars for the benefit of the families of 
those of his followers who sacrificed their lives in 
the expedition. 

Soon after the river steamer leaves Prescott it 
passes through the Gallops and the Rapids du 
Plat. These, though not turbulent enough to 
afford any excitement, give a foretaste of what 
is to follow, and are a welcome change from the 
smooth surface and steady current of the upper 
river. But the Long Sault (sault or saut, pro- 
nounced soo^ is equivalent to rapids) which 
comes next contains the heaviest swells on the 
river. The rapids here extend for a distance of 
nine miles with a total fall of about fifty feet. 
They are roughest at the part known as "the 
Cellar." There, and wherever else the treach- 
erous reefs block the way, are found madly 
dashing waves and whirlpools and a smother of 
flying spray. 

When the descent in the steamer begins you 
can see on ahead the seething tumult of waters 
rushing in fierce violence down the declivity, 
apparently without termination. The vessel 
shoots forward, settles downward to a lower 
level, rushes ahead again, and the sinking is 
repeated; and thus the boat goes on through 



The Rapids 47 

the buffeting surges and darkHng eddies past 
jutting headlands and threatening boulders. 
Eveh with her steam almost shut off she has a 
speed of twenty miles an hour, carried along by 
the sheer force of the current, and navigation of 
the Long Sault requires unusual nerve and pre- 
cision in piloting. To lessen the possibility of 
a mishap the rudder is provided with an emer- 
gency tiller, and this is ready for instant use while 
shooting the rapids. 

The first large boat to attempt the passage of 
the Long Sault was the Ontario built about the 
year 1840 at the upper end of the lake of the 
same name. Her speediness attracted the atten- 
tion of some Montreal men who bought her for 
a mail boat to ply between that city and Quebec. 
Then they grappled with the problem of getting 
her down to Montreal. No craft of anywhere 
near that size had ever attempted to run the Long 
Sault; but they secured for the hazardous under- 
taking, two Indians known as **01d Jock" and 
'*01d Pete," the best pilots on the river. The 
owners promised them one thousand dollars 
each if they accomplished the enterprise success- 
fully. 

To test the depth of the water a crib was made 
forty feet square with cross pieces ten feet apart. 



48 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

and having stakes ten feet long projecting at 
frequent intervals from the bottom. Several 
Indians towed the crib out into the stream at 
the head of the rapids and let it go. Meanv^hile 
a number of other Indians had been stationed 
in trees along the riverside to watch the crib's 
progress, and still others were stationed at the 
foot of the rapids where they caught the crib 
when it reached the quiet water. The crib was 
turned over and it was found that none of the 
stakes were broken. So it was plain there was 
water enough to run the Ontario through. 

The Indians who had been in the trees on the 
bank then went on board the vessel and the 
voyage began. Each piloted it in turn as far as 
he had observed the crib's course. The only 
white man on board was the engineer, and he, like 
Old Jock and Old Pete was generously rewarded. 
Thus was made, in 1843, the first steamer trip 
down the rapids, and a descendant of one of 
those pioneer pilots now guides with trusty hand 
a modern boat that goes over the same course 
as the Ontario went then. But no other steamer 
attempted the shooting of the rapids for fifteen 
years. 

I stopped in the vicinity of the Long Sault 
at a country village where I was told a vari- 




f^ 



The Rapids 49 

ety of picturesque anecdotes concerning the 
river. 

"The other day," said the landlord of my hotel, 
"the rudder chain of the steamer broke while 
she was right in the midst of the rapids, and the 
boat went careering down the stream in a way 
that made the passengers' hair stand on end. 
You know she goes through those rapids like a 
bullet shot out of a gun, and what with her wild 
motions and her speed the five hundred tourists 
on board were just about scared to death. They 
were all in a panic running around and not 
knowing whether to jump over, or take the 
chances of getting smashed up on the vessel. 
But they got through finally without being 
wrecked, and anchored to patch up things before 
they went farther. 

"That didn't hold a candle to the way two 
fellows from this village ran the rapids some 
years ago. James Bullock, the hotel-keeper here 
got up a picnic, and he thought it would be a big 
advertisement for the picnic and draw a crowd 
if he announced that a sixteen foot skiff with a 
couple of men in it would go down the rapids. 
He would be one of the men, and for the other 
he got John McPhee — Tndian John' people 
called him, though he wasn't an Indian at all. 



50 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

only rather dark skinned. The crowd come all 
right, and gathered on a hill where they could see 
the whole thing. First an old apple tree was sent 
down with a straw man tied astraddle of it. 
That was to give an idea of where to go with the 
boat. 

" Bullock and McPhee expected to get a duck- 
ing, and they took oflF their coats and vests and 
boots and everything except their trousers and 
shirts. One man rowed and the other sat in the 
stern to steer. They might have gone through 
all right; but Lord! they went out too far. 
Besides, I guess they'd drank a glass or two 
more'n was good for 'em. They got a blame 
good scare right at the start. At the very head 
of the rapids is a big white swell that is never 
twice alike. That old breaker works cur'us, and 
when the boat struck it she was tossed up as 
high as a house, bottom upward. On shore 
there was the greatest excitement you ever saw, 
but we couldn't do anything. The boat went on 
like a race horse. Sometimes the men were on 
it and sometimes off, and there were times when 
they were swimming twenty feet away. 

"By and by they got to the whirlpool and the 
boat canted up on end and went right down 
out of sight. That was where they lost their 



The Rapids 51 

grip. But there happened to be a boat with a 
couple of men in it near the shore at that place 
and they grabbed Bullock and McPhee by the 
hair of their heads as they were drifting around 
the circuit of the whirlpool and pulled 'em out. 
They were helpless and pretty near drowned, 
but by rolling 'em on a barrel they got the water 
out of 'em so that they finally revived." 

The hotel and village were strikingly quiet, 
and I wondered at the absence of loafers and 
drinkers. The landlord explained in much dis- 
gust that the place had voted no license. "That 
isn't the fault of the village," said he, "but of 
the farmers out in the country — Methodists and 
such. It has made this a dead town." That is, 
the saloons which were formerly centers of noisy 
drunken sociability are now dull places. 

"The region is prosperous," said my landlord, 
"but the farmers are often pretty hard up for 
help. They used to depend largely on their own 
boys to do the work. Of late years, however, 
the boys all have to be educated and they leave 
the farm as soon as they can. The only boy 
who stays at home to help the old man is the 
numskull who can't learn anything." 

In the evening we had a little thunderstorm — 
a very slight affair compared with some that 



52 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

visit the vicinity. It reminded the landlord of 
an experience a few years previous. "Td gone 
down to the river, about two miles away one 
evening to fish," said he, "and was caught in a 
series of thunderstorms which were so fierce 
they fairly made the earth shake. I stayed in a 
fisherman's shack on the bank, and when I 
looked out all I could see was just balls of fire 
flying through the air. The storms kept coming 
up one right after the other all night long. 

'*rd gone to fish for sturgeon. They run up 
the rapids about the middle of June when the 
raspberries are in blossom. It took two men to 
do the fishing. One would stand on the bank 
with a fat pine torch, and the other, armed with 
a long pole that had a gaff on the end, would 
watch till he saw a fish and then make a strike 
at it. I've caught lots of sturgeon that would 
weigh over a hundred pounds apiece. They 
sometimes grew to be eight or ten feet long and 
were so strong they'd pull a man in." 

There are still sturgeon in the river, but the 
construction of a canal around the rapids has 
so changed the conditions along shore that 
the fishing has been abandoned. By way of this 
canal all the ordinary water traffic passes up and 
down the valley; for the steamer that goes down 



The Rapids 5^ 

the Long Sauk makes the trip merely for the 
purpose of giving a thrill to tourists. 

At the lower end of the canal is the busy 
manufacturing town of Cornwall; but the 
attractions of the town itself appealed less to 
me than the fact that in its vicinity was the 
Indian village of St. Regis. The Indian com- 
munity, however, is five miles down the river on 
the other side. When I inquired how to get 
there someone recommended a certain old man 
who owned a motor boat. I hunted him up and 
we went together to his little shack of a boat- 
house. A small girl came and stood on the 
bank watching our preparations to embark, and 
my ancient mariner chatted with her affection- 
ately. He called her "Beauty," and in an aside 
to me said she was a favorite of his because her 
looks reminded him so much of his first wife. 

Presently the engine had been oiled and 
started and we pushed out of the boathouse into 
the stream and sped away down the river aided 
by the current and a brisk wind. The engine 
did not run very smoothly. Every little while it 
gave an explosive snort and slowed down as if it 
intended to quit work. But we kept on without 
a stop, dashing through the crested waves and 
rounding point after point until the old man 



54 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

called to me and pointing with his finger said: 
"St. Regis." 

I looked and saw in the distance, close by the 
shore, a stone church and some clustering homes. 
We soon made a landing, and I went up the 
bank and rambled about the village. The 
church and the stone-walled, low-roofed priest's 
house were within a few rods of the water. Be- 
hind were the village dwellings strung along 
rough, narrow lanes; and there were little fields 
of potatoes, corn and pumpkins, and thistle- 
grown opens and pastures. The houses were 
nearly all small, and their aspect was dismally 
barren and often shabby. At several places a 
tall wooden cross was erected by the wayside. 
These crosses were praying places in the pro- 
cessional religious fetes. 

The church building was evidently not to be 
attributed to the taste and enterprise of the 
Indians themselves. It was large, substantial 
and well-proportioned. Indian individuality 
seemed, however, to find expression in the un- 
kempt burial place at one side of the edifice. 
Amid the ragged growths of weeds and grass 
was an occasional gravestone, and two or three 
graves were surrounded by rickety picket- 
fences, but the only really conspicuous object was 



The Rapids 55 

a weathercock that had formerly been on the 
church spire and that had been replaced there 
by a gilt cross. It was a grotesque sort of bird 
on an ornamental standard perhaps ten feet high, 
and it looked very strange guarding the burial- 
place. 

The day had been clear and sunny, but now 
big threatening clouds were reaching up across 
the sky, and when I returned to the boat the 
prospect was so stormy that my skipper hesi- 
tated to start. Soon, however, the sky bright- 
ened, and we got under way right in the teeth 
of the wind so that the spray from the white caps, 
as we bumped the waves, came flying over me 
where I sat in the bow. The sun shone at inter- 
vals through the broken clouds and illumined 
the river and the vast low landscape in a many- 
colored pageant. Where the river was in sunlight 
it was a delicate opaline tint, but under the cloud 
shadows it took on many a dusky tone of darker 
green or blue. The fields and woods on the 
banks alternated in the changing light and 
shadow from brilliant emerald to sober olive, 
while the distance was purple or azure. 

I was having a glorious voyage, and thinking 
how all this scenic impressiveness must have 
appealed to the old French explorers when sud- 



56 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

denly our engine stopped. *Tt won't pump/* 
said my skipper, "and it has got so hot I don't 
dare let it work any longer." 

Sure enough, the machinery was smoking, and 
there was a smell of burnt oil in the air. We 
were in mid-river, far from our destination, with 
desolate shores on either side, and wind and 
current against us. The boat swung around 
helpless amid the buffeting waves, and we had 
nothing with which to relieve the situation except 
one slender oar and a broken paddle. I labored 
with the former and the skipper with the latter; 
but the craft was too heavy and the elements too 
boisterous for us to make much of a success of 
this sort of navigation. We could not prevent 
the boat from swinging out of its course, and in 
order to correct its erraticalness I had to shift my 
oar to the opposite side every few minutes. So 
we were carried down stream in spite of all we 
could do. 

At length the skipper started his engine and 
got us around a point to where the current was 
less swift. Then he again had to shut off power 
and we resumed our labor with the oar and the 
broken paddle. My companion was by nature 
optimistic, and though he sometimes swore and 
sometimes groaned, he every little while had an 



The Rapids 57 

idea for fixing his engine. His hands were too 
shaky for him to work with much expertness, 
and again and again he abandoned the task and 
took up the paddle. Two or three motor boats 
passed, but were far off across the great river. 
The old man put his hands up at the sides of his 
mouth and tried to hail them, and he swung his 
hat. But the people in the motor boats neither 
saw nor heard and soon disappeared frow view. 
Our own best speed would hardly have rivalled 
that of a snail. 

Finally an Indian came along in a skiff. I 
beckoned to him, and he turned aside from his 
course, and when he drew near rested on his 
oars and regarded us curiously. My skipper 
explained our trouble, and it was agreed that the 
Indian should take me across the river and leave 
word at a certain boathouse to send help to the 
castaway mariner. We got the old man's craft 
to the shore and there left him. Then away we 
went over the white-capped river. My oarsman 
was a sinewy fellow who kept steadily and 
vigorously to his task, and after a long pull 
reached the opposite bank, and I plodded back 
to town. 

I had supper at a small hotel near the railroad 
station. My companions at the table were of the 



58 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

working class, and while they ate they were en- 
gaged in a continuous joking discussion of their 
escapades when drunk. That they should get 
drunk was taken as a matter of course. Appar- 
ently it was their view that no manly man would 
always keep sober, and even if he had spells of 
being unquestionably vicious or beastly, that 
was usually thought humorous by his mates. 
To smoke and spit in public places, to swear and 
swagger and guzzle seems to be the ambition of 
a very large proportion of the Canadian youths. 
Their elders set the pace. I remember seeing a 
white-haired, spectacled man in a street car who 
proclaimed his nationality by singing "Scots 
wha hae wi' Wallace bled" as he marched up 
and down the aisle; and each time he made a 
step he wound the leg he lifted around the other 
in a most ecstatic manner. Drinking is the habit 
of the country and is not confined to any par- 
ticular class. 

In continuing down the river from the Long 
Sault, there is a considerable interval of smooth 
water before the Coteau Rapids are reached. 
The steamer makes the descent of these by a 
tortuous channel that winds in and out among 
numerous islands. At times the vessel almost 



The Rapids 59 

brushes the trees on shore as it sweeps swiftly 
along. 

Seven miles farther on are Cedar Rapids, 
which are commonly held to be the most beauti- 
ful of the entire series, and immediately after- 
ward occur the Split Rock Rapids. The latter 
are sentineled at the entrance by submerged and 
ominous boulders, and they are particularly 
difficult to navigate. Next comes the white- 
crested turbulence of the Cascade Rapids, and 
then for a dozen miles the river is a broad 
expanse known as Lake St. Louis. 

Charles Dickens made this river trip in 1842, 
but travelled by stagecoach around the more 
violent rapids. He mentions being much im- 
pressed by the rafts which then were frequently 
seen floating down the river. One of these that 
he describes as "gigantic" had "some thirty or 
forty wooden houses on it, and at least as many 
flag masts so that it looked like a nautical street." 
In those days all the lumber from the regions 
above was floated down the St. Lawrence in 
this manner. After the raft reached its desti- 
nation it was broken up, the materials were sold 
and the boatmen returned for more. 

When Lake St. Louis is passed, and the river 
contracts to its normal width its main mass flows 



6o The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

south of the great Island of Montreal. At the 
left, on the island, is the town of Lachine. This 
place was begun by La Salle, who arrived in 
Montreal in the spring of 1666. Most of the 
island was then in the control of a corporation 
of priests, styled the Seminary of St. Sulpice. 
Montreal was very much exposed to Indian 
attacks, and the priests wanted to extend a thin 
line of settlements along the front of their island 
to serve as protecting outposts. So they granted 
to La Salle, on easy terms, a large tract of land 
some eight or nine miles up the river. Though 
the tract was dangerously exposed, its situation 
was very advantageous for the fur trade, and La 
Salle soon interested others in the enterprise and 
began the improvement of his domain. He laid 
out the boundaries of a palisaded village, assign- 
ing to each settler about a third of an acre within 
the inclosure and about forty acres outside. 
For his own personal use he reserved three 
hundred acres and built on it a stout stone house 
near the waterside. 

The Indians soon began to visit the secluded 
settlement, and La Salle learned the languages 
and dialects of seven or eight different tribes. 
Some of the more western of these visitors told 
him of a river called the Ohio which started in 



The Rapids 6i 

their country and flowed toward the sunset to a 
sea that was many months' journey distant. 
La Salle shared the common fancy of the times 
that a passage might exist through the American 
continent to the South Sea, and he concluded 
that this Ohio River flowed into the Gulf of 
California. He was eager to explore it, and in 
order to gain the means for the journey he 
induced the Seminary to buy back most of his 
Lachine domain, and he found another customer 
for the rest. The expedition started in mid- 
summer, 1669, and it reached the Ohio and 
followed that river down as far as Louisville. 
Then various troubles and difficulties obliged 
La Salle to turn back. On his return to civiliza- 
tion Lachine received the name it bears in 
derision of the young explorer's attempt to find 
a western passage to China. 

Lachine had an anxious time in its early 
years, for it was peculiarly open to the raids of 
the warlike and powerful Iroquois. Champlain 
had come into violent collision with these Indians 
soon after the first permanent settlement was 
made in the St. Lawrence valley, and they had 
never been really friendly with the French since. 
That they were not always openly hostile was 
due to diplomacy and the efforts of the mission- 



62 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

aries. Circumstances led them to a somewhat 
loose alliance with the English, and they helped 
the latter to divert the fur trade of the Great 
Lakes away from the St. Lawrence. This trade 
was almost the only means of subsistence to the 
French, and when they attempted to retaliate 
the Iroquois could be restrained no longer. The 
result was that in 1689 there was great suffering 
in all the little settlements on the upper river. 
No one was safe who ventured out of the hastily- 
built stockade forts, the fields were left untilled, 
and the Indians prowled about waylaying con- 
voys and killing or capturing stragglers. Their 
movements were so mysterious and their attacks 
so sudden that the settlers lived in a state of 
constant dread. 

One night a violent hail-storm burst over Lake 
St. Louis. In the midst of this tempest fifteen hun- 
dred Iroquois warriors landed at Lachine, and 
posted themselves unperceived about the houses 
of the sleeping settlers. Then they screeched 
their warwhoop, and began the most frightful 
massacre in Canadian history. The houses were 
burned, and men, women and children indis- 
criminately butchered. In the neighborhood 
were several stockade forts, and only three miles 
away was an encampment of two hundred 



The Rapids 63 

soldiers. At four o'clock in the morning the 
troops in the camp heard a cannon-shot from 
one of the forts. They were at once ordered 
under arms. Soon afterward, a man, just es- 
caped from the massacre, came running to 
them, and after telling his story, hurried on 
toward Montreal. Then a number of fugitives 
appeared, chased by a band of Iroquois, who 
gave over the pursuit at sight of the soldiers, 
but pillaged several houses before their eyes. 

Presently, when about a hundred armed in- 
habitants had joined the troops they moved 
together toward Lachine. The houses were still 
burning, and the bodies of their inmates were 
strewn among them. An escaped prisoner 
brought the information that the Indians were 
all encamped a mile and a half farther on, 
most of them helplessly drunk with brandy 
taken from the houses of the traders. The 
leader of the troops would have led his force 
against them, but just then orders came from 
the governor at Montreal to run no risks and 
stand solely on the defensive. They therefore 
retired to one of the forts. The next day a de- 
tachment of eighty men from another fort 
attempted to join them; but they were attacked 
by the Iroquois, who had slept off the effect of 



64 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

their orgies, and in full sight of their fellow- 
soldiers were nearly all killed or captured. 

Montreal was wild with terror, though it was 
fortified with palisades and there were troops 
in the town under the governor himself The 
fears of the panic-stricken people were not real- 
ized, for town and forts were left unmolested. 
The Indians contented themselves with burning 
all the houses and barns for nine miles around, 
while small parties pillaged and scalped at 
twice that distance. Their own losses were in- 
significant, consisting of a few warriors killed 
and three drunken stragglers captured. These 
prisoners, when they came to their senses, defied 
their guards and fought with such ferocity that 
it was necessary to shoot them. 

For two months the invaders continued to 
roam the vicinity, and then most of them took 
to their canoes and recrossed Lake St. Louis in 
a body, giving ninety yells to show they had 
that number of prisoners in their clutches. 
There were enough other captives to make fully 
one hundred and twenty in all, and about two 
hundred persons had been killed. The Indians 
camped on the other side of the lake and began 
to torture and devour their prisoners, and from 
the strand of Lachine sorrowing groups of 



The Rapids 65 

whites saw the fires gleaming along the distant 
shore where their friends and relatives were 
suffering. The greater part of the prisoners, 
however, were reserved to be carried to the towns 
of the Indians and there tortured for the diver- 
sion of the inhabitants. 

It was at one time the hope of the French to 
win over the Iroquois in a body by wholesale 
conversion to the Faith; but this attempt failed. 
So beside the St. Lawrence on the south side of 
the river nearly opposite Lachine they estab- 
lished a village which should be the home of 
such converts as they could gain. In 1736 the 
number of warriors at this village of Caugh- 
nawaga, a name that means praying Indians, 
was estimated at three hundred. They could 
not be trusted to fight their kinsmen, but willing- 
ly made forays against the English borders. 
Like the other Canadian missions Caughnawaga 
was of value to the Church, the army and the 
fur trade. It had a chapel, fortifications and 
storehouses. The present town has a population 
of nearly three thousand. Its people are devoted 
adherents of the Roman Catholic faith, and each 
year, in June, join in the celebration of the Fete 
Dieu, accoutered in their tribal paint and 
ornaments. 



66 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

From the Lachine shore I could see Caughna- 
waga's slender church spire and close-set homes 
on the opposite bank vague in the silvery haze 
of the distance, and I was enticed to go across 
and visit the place. I journeyed over the river 
in a rude, stumpy steam ferryboat that made 
two trips a day. The village was strung along 
on a low rocky bluff that affords an agreeable 
outlook on the swift, clear river. There was no 
apparent method in the layout of the town. The 
streets went helter-skelter, and the houses seemed 
placed by chance, with very little foresight in 
the matter of personal or community conven- 
ience. Through the midst of the homes that 
gathered along the riverfront there was a 
straggling ungraded stony road with plenty of 
mudholes for variety. It was irregularly rutted 
with the tracks of wheels that showed how the 
teams had wandered hither and thither in a 
hopeless attempt to find a route that was both 
firm and smooth. One short portion of the 
street had a few shade trees, and there were often 
unkempt fruit trees back of the houses. Some 
of these houses were reasonably large and well- 
built, but the majority were small and shabby. 
Occasionally the walls were of logs, but frame 
houses were more common, and there were a 



The Rapids 67 

considerable number made of stone. To repair 
or improve a building was evidently a last resort, 
and you felt yourself to be in a community of 
incompetents or of persons with some curious 
mental bias. Many of the men are employees 
in the outlying Montreal manufactories and do 
fairly well, though very rarely becoming skilled 
workmen. Near the houses were little gardens 
where grew corn, potatoes and weeds. I ob- 
served no tendency to cultivate flowers or to in 
any way beautify the surroundings of the dwell- 
ings. In a number of houses a room or a corner 
of it was devoted to a litte store, and there was 
a display of goods in the front window. But the 
window was ill-suited for such use, and the 
goods were too unattractive in themselves and 
too poorly displayed to be tempting. 

The church was large and substantial, and 
its gritty, deep-worn floor attested the devotion 
of the Indians to their religion. I could not help 
fancying that the gaudiness of the altar decora- 
tions and the suff'erings depicted in the colored 
pictures on the walls had something to do with 
the worshippers' attachment to the church. On 
the borders of the village was their cemetery 
surrounded by a stout wire fence. A few of 
the graves were marked with stones, but most 



68 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

had merely a wooden cross set up that in a few 
years would decay and disappear. 

Caughnawaga has a melancholy connection 
with one of the most tragic events in the history 
of New England — the destruction of Deerfield 
by the French and Indians in 1704. Many 
captives were taken through the winter snows 
to Canada, and Eunice Williams, the little 
daughter of the Deerfield minister, was lodged 
among these mission Indians. Most of the 
captives were ransomed later, but the Indians, 
or the missionaries in their name, would not let 
the little girl go. Her father visited her soon 
after she had been sent to the mission, and lest 
she should become a convert to the Catholic 
religion, exhorted her to remember all the pious 
teachings of her home. "She is there still," 
writes Williams two years later, "and has for- 
gotten to speak English." What grieved him 
still more, she had forgotten her catechism. 

Time went on, and Eunice Williams, the name- 
sake of her mother who had been slaughtered on 
the march northward, remained in the wigwams 
of the Caughnawagas. She was baptized and 
eventually married an Indian of the tribe, who 
thenceforward called himself Williams. Their 
children therefore bore her family name. Her 




Sailing vessels at the Montreal whc 



The Rapids 69 

father, who went back to his parish at Deerfield, 
never ceased to pray for her return to her country 
and her faith. She actually made a visit to her re- 
lations in 1740, dressed as a squaw and wrapped 
in an Indian blanket; but nothing would per- 
suade her to stay. On one occasion she was in^ 
duced to put on civilized dress and go to church; 
yet immediately after the service she impatiently 
discarded her gown and resumed her blanket. 
She came again the next year, bringing two of her 
half-breed children, and twice afterward re- 
peated the visit. She and her husband were 
offered a tract of land if they would settle in 
New England; but she positively refused saying 
that it would endanger her soul. She lived to a 
great age, a squaw to the last. 

The case of Eunice Williams was far from 
being an isolated one, and a missionary at the 
Indian town of St. Francis, writing in 1866, 
remarks, " If one should trace out all the English 
families brought into Canada by the Indians, 
one would be astonished at the number of persons 
who today are indebted to these savages for the 
blessing of being Catholics and the advantage 
of being Canadians." 

A little below Caughnawaga are the Lachine 
Rapids with a fall of forty-five feet. Not many 



70 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

years ago long rowboats manned by the Indians 
used to shoot the rapids conveying parties of 
tourists but the present-day Indians seem to have 
less aquatic skill than their predecessors, and 
the pastime has been abandoned. To look at 
the white tumult of the rushing flood one V70uld 
not think a small boat could withstand the stress, 
but the Indians were so thoroughly acquainted 
with the shoals and rocks and the frantic humors 
of the fierce current that the feat was accom- 
plished with safety. 

The first white man to brave these rapids was 
a youth who, on the tenth of June, 1611, went 
with two Indians to shoot herons on an island. 
He was drowned on the way down. A few days 
later another white man came down safely with 
a party of Hurons among whom he had spent 
the winter. Champlain was the third to make 
the descent. He had been conferring with the 
Indians at the upper end of the island, and they 
took him down the rapids in their birchen boats, 
somewhat to the discomposure of his nerves, 
as he admits. 

Of course the modern passage down the rapids 
in a steamboat is comparatively prosaic, but 
there is nevertheless a certain sense of peril, and 
it is reassuring to know that not an accident of 



The Rapids 71 

any consequence has happened, nor has a single 
life been lost for many years. As the vessel 
approaches the really tumultuous part of the 
rapids there is a long prelude of swift water that 
boils and writhes ominously. At length the 
current roughens into foamy surges and you can 
feel the griping clutches of the demoniac water 
beneath the boat. Yet the motion of the vessel 
never becomes so violent as to be dismaying. 
It is simply a slide down a turbulent liquid hill, 
and only some very unlikely internal disable- 
ment of the vessel could produce a possibility of 
disaster. The wilder portion of the rapids is 
passed in a few minutes and the boat is again 
in a torrent that only heaves and twists. 

It was late in the afternoon of a beautiful 
September day that I made the trip. The at- 
mosphere was clear, and I could look far off 
over the broad landscape, and in the remote east 
could see some mountain ranges lying blue and 
serene along the horizon. The near shore of 
Montreal Island was luxuriantly fringed with 
trees amid which I got glimpses of homes dotted 
along near the waterside, while on ahead, 
golden in the light of sunset, was the smoke- 
plumed, wide-spreading city with its many spires 
and domes, and behind it the guardian height 



72 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

of Mount Royal. The steamer was still in mid- 
stream and there was not yet any cessation in 
the boiling swiftness of the current when we 
passed between two of the mighty piers of the 
Victoria Bridge. Not until we were in the 
harbor close to our dock did we reach quiet 
water. 

The rapids all occur between Prescott and 
Montreal, and the journey down requires only 
a few hours, but the steamer's return with the 
necessity of moving slowly in the canals and 
loitering through numerous locks consumes a 
night and part of two days. In early times, 
before the advent of the canals, this up-river 
journey in small boats was not only slow but 
arduous. One of the Jesuit missionaries writing 
of his experiences in climbing the rapids says: 

*Tt is often necessary to alight from the canoe 
and walk in the river. The canoe is grasped 
with the hand and dragged behind, two men 
usually sufficing for this. I sometimes took a 
hand in helping my savages; but the bottom 
of the river is full of stones so sharp that I could 
not walk long, being barefooted. There are 
portages of one, two and three leagues, and it is 
necessary to carry all the baggage through woods 
or over high and troublesome rocks, as well as 



The Rapids 73 

the canoes themselves. This is not done without 
much work, for several trips must be made, no 
matter how few packages one has." 

To preserve the good nature of his "savages" 
the missionary tried to never keep them waiting 
when they were ready to embark, and at the 
portages he helped with the burdens. Even if 
he carried no more than a kettle the Indians 
were pleased. He was provided with a " burning- 
mirror" which he used on sunny days to make 
a mid-day campfire or light the boatmen's pipes; 
and he had a tinder-box to start a fire in the 
evening. 

The canals around the Cascade, Cedar and 
Coteau Rapids were begun at the time of the 
American Revolution and were the first on this 
continent. Not until long afterward was work 
started on the Lachine Canal, and it was 1821 
when it was ready for use. 



EARLY MONTREAL 

'* I ^HE situation of Montreal makes it a natural 
-^ center of human travel and traffic. It is 
at the foot of the last of the St. Lawrence rapids, 
and near the mouth of the Ottawa which comes 
in from the north, and it is within a short dis- 
tance overland of the Richelieu which flows 
from the south. This position was of importance 
even in the prehistoric Indian days. Many a 
barbaric fight must have taken place in the 
neighborhood, and many a canoe full of painted 
warriors must have crept stealthily along the 
shore of Montreal Island with intent to surprise 
their enemies. 

Cartier had found a populous Indian town at 
the foot of Mount Royal, but when Champlain 
visited the island in 1603 the town had vanished. 
Doubtless enemies had wiped it out. Montreal 
was the gateway to the Indian country west and 
north, and in 161 1 Champlain resorted thither 
to consider establishing there a permanent 
trading-post. It was about the time of year that 



Early Montreal 75 

the Indians from the far interior brought their furs 
down the river, and a crowd of adventurers eager 
to barter for this wilderness wealth followed in 
Champlain's wake in a fleet of boats and small 
vessels. Shortly after they reached their desti- 
nation a party of Hurons was seen coming down 
the Lachine Rapids, their birch canoes dancing 
through the foam and spray of the angry torrent. 
As they drew near the landing, the fur-traders 
blazed out a clattering fusilade of welcome — a 
form of greeting so unfamiliar to the savages 
that they were greatly terrified, and it was only 
after a good deal of hesitation that they would 
venture to land. Other parties of Indians 
arrived later and they all camped along the 
waterside. 

The traders, in jealous competition for the 
beaver skins the savages had brought, left them 
no peace, and they were increasingly alarmed 
and suspicious. Late one night they awakened 
Champlain and conducted him to their camp 
where the whole company was in solemn con- 
clave around the glimmering firelight." They 
trusted him, but were convinced that the lawless 
bands of rival traders intended to plunder and 
kill them. Champlain tried in vain to reassure 
the perturbed warriors. They were so vividly 



76 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

impressed with the fancied peril of their present 
position that they removed in a body to the 
borders of Lake St. Louis a number of miles up 
the river, thus placing the rapids between them 
and the objects of their alarm. 

Champlain concluded that conditions were 
not propitious for establishing a permanent 
colony at Montreal. Its importance as a trad- 
ing-post grew, however, though it was occupied 
only a part of the year until 1642. The settle- 
ment of the place at that time was due to some 
religious enthusiasts in France, one of whom 
was commanded in a vision to become the 
founder of a new order of hospital nuns on the 
Island of Montreal in the St. Lawrence. He 
interested others in the project, and at length an 
expedition was dispatched under the command 
of a devout and gallant gentleman named 
Maisonneuve, who mustered forty men and 
four women for the enterprise. 

After they had started on their voyage across 
the Atlantic the French Associates who were 
responsible for the new settlement that was to 
be founded in the wilderness gathered at Paris 
in the Church of Notre Dame. There, before 
the altar of the Virgin, they consecrated the settle- 



Early Montreal 77 

ment to the Holy Family and named it Ville 
marie de Montreal. 

The voyagers arrived at Quebec in 1641, but 
too late to ascend to Montreal that season. Dur- 
ing the winter they built boats, and early in May 
they embarked to go on up the river. The boats 
consisted of a pinnace, a flat-bottomed craft 
moved by sails, and two rowboats. Deep-laden 
with men, arms and stores, the boats moved 
slowly on their way, and on the eighteenth of 
the month the little company landed where the 
great docks of the modern city now are. Here 
a rivulet joined the St. Lawrence, and beyond 
a meadow that bordered the brook rose the 
forest. 

Maisonneuve sprang ashore and fell on his 
knees. His followers imitated his example, and 
all joined their voices in songs of thanksgiving. 
Afterward they erected an altar and transferred 
their goods to the shore. Presently the twilight 
came on and fireflies twinkled over the darkening 
meadow. Then the pioneers pitched their tents, 
lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their guards 
and lay down to rest. 

In the morning work was resumed. Maison- 
neuve himself hewed down the first tree to be 
used in making a strong palisade around their 



78 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

camp. This palisade was soon completed, a 
chapel of bark was built to protect their altar, 
and log cabins to take the place of the tents. On 
Sundays they would stroll over the meadow and 
among the trees of the forest. 

The summer passed prosperously, but in 
December the St. Lawrence rose threateningly. 
They tried the efficacy of prayer, and Maison- 
neuve planted a wooden cross in the path of 
the advancing flood and vowed that should it 
spare their settlement he would bear another 
cross on his shoulders up the neighboring moun- 
tain, and place it on the summit. The water 
continued to rise, filled the fort ditch and crept 
up to the foot of the palisade; but there it 
stopped, and at length it receded to its proper 
channel. In order to fulfill his promise, Maison- 
neuve now set his men at work to clear a path 
through the forest to the top of the mountain. 
A large cross was made, and the inhabitants 
went in solemn procession to the destined spot 
the commandant walking in the rear and carry- 
ing the cross, which was so heavy it taxed his 
utmost strength to climb the steep and rugged 
path. They planted the sacred symbol on the 
highest crest, and all knelt in adoration be- 
fore it. There the cross long remained, an 



Early Montreal 79 

object of pilgrimage to the pious colonists of 
Villemarie. 

The next year new recruits came from France, 
and some progress was made in converting the 
Indians. Quebec and Three Rivers were the 
only other settlements in the great valley. These 
and the scattered missions had a total white 
population of scarcely more than three hundred 
souls, and comprised the whole of New France. 
None of the river settlements were safe from 
Indian forays, and Montreal was particularly 
exposed. It was an outpost almost in the path 
of the war parties, and in 1643 those human 
wolves of the forest, the Iroquois, discovered the 
new village. Thenceforth its inhabitants had 
no peace. The men were obliged to go armed 
to their work, and they returned at the sound of 
a bell, marching in compact order prepared for 
an attack. 

Three of a party of six who were hewing tim- 
ber within gunshot of the fort were killed and 
the rest taken prisoners. One of these prisoners 
later escaped, but the other two were burned 
alive. Sometimes a solitary savage skulking in 
the woodland terrorized the community, and 
again a hundred or more warriors hovered in 
the vicinity. 



8o The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

A number of dogs that were brought from 
France proved a great aid in scenting the 
presence of foes. Chief among these was a 
female named Pilot, who every morning made it 
her habit to go the rounds of the adjacent 
fields and forest with a troop of her offspring at 
her heels. When she detected any of the Iro- 
quois she set up a furious barking and the entire 
squad of dogs ran pell-mell to the fort. 

On the morning of March 30, 1644, Pilot and 
her followers came running over the clearing 
from the eastward, all giving tongue together 
with unusual vehemence. The men in the fort 
wanted to go to the woods and see if the enemy 
was really there. Maisonneuve, who had taken 
care to avoid risks in the past to a degree that 
made some of his soldiers murmur and hint that 
he lacked courage, now responded that they 
might make ready and he would lead them him- 
self. When preparations were complete, thirty 
men left the fort and betook themselves to the 
forest, wading cautiously along through the 
deep snow until they were greeted with the 
screeches of a numerous body of Iroquois who 
sprang up from their lurking places and show- 
ered the French with bullets and arrows. 




The Place d' Armes and Notre Dame Cathedral 



Early Monti eal 8i 

Maisonneuve ordered his men to shelter them- 
selves behind the trees, and there they made a 
resolute defence for a long time; but the Iro- 
quois were creeping closer, three of the whites 
were already killed, several were wounded, and 
their ammunition was failing. A retreat was 
begun, steady at first, but gradually becoming 
confused through the eagerness of the men to 
escape from the galling fire of the Indians. The 
commandant remained at the rear, aiding the 
wounded and encouraging the others of his 
party, who from time to time paused to fire back 
and check the pursuit. When they presently 
got to a sledge track where the snow was firm 
underfoot the men could restrain their terror 
no longer, and they ran in a body for the fort. 

Maisonneuve was left alone, retreating back- 
ward and holding his pursuers in check with a 
pistol in each hand. The chief of the savages 
made a dash at the Frenchman, hoping to take 
him prisoner. Maisonneuve snapped his pistol 
at him, but it missed fire. The Iroquois had, 
however, paused a moment, and as he again 
sprang forward Maisonneuve with his remain- 
ing pistol shot him dead. In the confusion that 
followed, the French commander reached the 
shelter of the fort in safety. The spot where he 



82 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

fired the shot that saved him is now known, in 
commemoration of his deed, as the Place 
d' Armes, and is a small park in front of the great 
Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of the city. 

Montreal grew slowly and in 1659 it consisted 
of about forty small dwellings ranged parallel 
to the river, a little back from the waterside. 
On the left was a fort, and on rising ground at 
the right was a massive stone windmill enclosed 
with a palisade pierced for musketry, and an- 
swering the purpose of a block-house. From 
the borders of the hamlet, fields studded with 
charred and blackened stumps, between which 
crops were growing, stretched away to the edges 
of the neighboring forest, and a mile away rose 
the grim, shaggy Mount Royal. The laborers 
always carried their guns to the fields, and often 
had need to use them. There was, however, no 
important affray in the vicinity until 1689 when 
the great Indian massacre at Lachine occurred. 

Anxiety lest there should be other assaults 
by the savages long continued, and the very 
next year it was reported that Lake St. Louis was 
all covered with canoes coming down the river. 
The people of Montreal were much startled, 
cannon were fired to call in the troops from the 
detached posts, and the wildest excitement pre- 



Early Montreal 83 

vailed until it was learned that the canoes con- 
veyed friends, not enemies. The Indians were 
from the upper lakes and were coming to market 
with their beaver skins. For several years they 
had done their trading with the English, but 
reports of English and Iroquois defeats had 
made them turn again to the French. They all 
descended the rapids and landed near the town, 
and a few days later another large fleet of fur- 
laden canoes, manned by French traders, 
arrived. Never had Canada experienced such 
an inflow of wealth. 

The Indians painted, greased and befeathered 
themselves, and then mustered for the grand 
council that always preceded the opening of the 
market. Frontenac, at that time governor of 
New France, was present, and roused the 
savages to enthusiasm by taking a hatchet, 
brandishing it in the air and singing a war- 
song. The principal Frenchmen who were with 
him followed his example, and the whole as- 
sembly fell to stamping and screeching like 
madmen. 

Then came a solemn war-feast. Two oxen and 
six large dogs had been chopped to pieces for 
the occasion, and boiled with a quantity of 
prunes; and there was wine and an abundance 



84 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

of tobacco. Both whites and Indians agreed to 
wage war to the death on the Iroquois and 
English. Scarcely was the feast over when 
reports came of a hostile English expedition 
coming down the Richelieu from Lake Cham- 
plain. Preparations were made to meet this 
force, but the days passed and the enemy did not 
appear. Frontenac concluded that they had 
been needlessly alarmed, and the Indians, who 
would delay their homeward voyage no longer, 
were dismissed with ample presents. But soon 
afterward cannon were heard booming on the 
opposite shore. The settlement of La Prairie had 
been attacked by a raiding party of twenty-nine 
whites and one hundred and twenty Indians. 
A guard of French soldiers at La Prairie was 
assisting the inhabitants to reap in the wheat- 
fields. Twenty-five were killed or captured, 
many cattle were destroyed, and houses and 
barns and hayricks burned. 

This much done, the invaders sat down in the 
woods to eat dinner, while cannon answered 
cannon from Chambly and Montreal and the 
fort at La Prairie. The English were not in the 
least frightened by all this noise. Indeed, they 
seemed to find it entertaining, for the com- 
mander in describing the experience wrote that: 




At the entrance to the Lachine Canal 



Early Montreal 85 

"We thanked the Governor of Canada for his 
salute of heavy artillery during our meal." 

The expedition, as originally planned, con- 
templated the capture of Montreal, but mis- 
management ruined it almost at the start, and 
only this handful attempted to go to Canada, 
Nor V7as their success of any actual advantage. 
The blov7 they dealt was, in fact, less an injury 
to the French than an insult. 

It was the Indians, rather than the English,^ 
who were the real scourge of Canada; but the 
savages suffered such serious reverses themselves 
in their warfare against the French that more 
than once them made overtures for peace. The 
whites were quite ready to cease hostilities on 
condition that the savages should return their 
captives, and in 1700 a deputation of Iroquois 
warriors came to Montreal and delivered up 
thirteen prisoners. There were other French 
captives in their villages, but these had become 
attached to Indian life and would not leave it. 
After some palaver peace was made, and the 
Governor of the colony said: "I bury the 
hatchet in a deep hole, and over the ; hole 
I place a great rock, and over the rock I turn 
a river, that the hatchet may never be dug up 
again." 



86 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

To confirm the treaty a grand council of all 
concerned met in Montreal the next year. The 
Iroquois and the western and northern Indians 
came down the river in hundreds of canoes and 
were greeted by a salute of cannon. A great 
quantity of evergreen boughs had been gathered 
for their use, and of these they made their wig- 
wams outside the palisades. When the confer- 
ence began one great difficulty was encountered. 
Both the Iroquois and the other Indians, their 
enemies, who were the allies of the French, had 
many prisoners they had captured from each 
other, and it had been agreed that these should 
be brought to the council for a general exchange. 
But only the allies had complied, and they were 
greatly incensed at the failure of the Iroquois to 
do as they had done. Their leader, a chief 
known as '*The Rat," though so weakened by 
fever that he could not stand, made a two-hour 
speech to the assembly, seated in an arm-chair. 
When the meeting ended, he was completely 
exhausted, and he died that night. 

The French charged themselves with the 
funeral rites. On a robe of beaver skin, in his 
wigwam, the dead chief lay in state swathed in a 
scarlet blanket, with a kettle, a gun and a sword 
at his side to be buried with him for his use in 



Early Montreal Hj 

the world of spirits. Though the Iroquois were 
his deadliest foes, sixty of them came in solemn 
procession, ranged themselves around his bier 
and one of them delivered an eulogy in which 
he declared that the sun had covered its face 
that day in grief for the great Huron. When he 
was buried an escort of troops led the funeral 
train, followed by sixteen Huron warriors clad 
in robes of beaver skin, marching by fours with 
blackened faces and guns reversed. Then came 
the clergy, and next six war-chiefs carrying the 
coffin. It was decorated with flowers, and on 
it lay a plumed hat, a sword and a gorget. 
Behind it came numerous other warriors and 
French military officers. After the service the 
soldiers fired three volleys over the grave. All 
this ceremony pleased the Indians and helped 
to a final agreement with regard to the articles 
of peace. 

The fourth of August was named for the grand 
council. A vast oblong space on a plain near 
the town was enclosed with a fence of branches. 
Troops were stationed along the sides, and at 
one end was a canopy of boughs under which 
there were seats filled by ladies, officials, and the 
chief inhabitants of Montreal. The governor 
sat in front surrounded by interpreters, and the 



88 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Indians, more than thirteen hundred in number, 
were seated on the grass around the open space. 
The savages were painted with divers hues and 
patterns, and wore their dress of ceremony — 
leathern shirts that were fringed with scalp-locks, 
and colored blankets or robes of bison hide and 
beaver skin, while their heads bristled with 
crests of hair, eagle feathers, or antlers. 

The governor made a speech and a representa- 
tive of each of the thirty-one tribes which had 
members present responded. Then the peace 
pipe was passed around, and the treaty was duly 
signed, each tribal representative affixing his 
mark in the shape of some bird, beast, fish or 
other object. 

With the passing years Indian aggressions 
became increasingly rare; but the ravages as 
hunters and trappers long continued to be of 
vital importance in the material welfare of 
Canada. Early in the eighteenth century small 
quantities of timber and wheat began to be ex- 
ported, yet the country was still chiefly depend- 
ent on the traffic in beaver skins. To induce the 
Indians to come to the settlements annual fairs 
were inaugurated at Montreal and Three Rivers. 
That at the former place was particularly im- 
portant, and on the day following the arrival of 



Early Montreal 89 

the fleet of pelt-laden canoes a grand council was 
held on the common between the river and St. 
Paul Street. The gathering was a strange 
medley of Indians, French bush-rangers, greedy 
traders, priests and nuns, and officials. 

In these years of peace the town gradually 
grew and in 1760 it had nine thousand inhabi- 
tants and was somewhat larger than Quebec. 
Early in September of that year an English ex- 
pedition landed at Lachine. It had come down 
the river, and in running the rapids no less than 
forty-six of its boats had been totally wrecked, 
and nearly a hundred men drowned. But this 
was far from crippling it, and the invaders were 
soon encamped before the town walls. Montreal 
was at that time a long narrow assemblage of 
wooden and stone houses, churches and convents, 
surrounded by a bastioned stone wall made for 
defence against Indians, but incapable of re- 
sisting cannon. The town was crowded with 
refugees, and could muster only about twenty- 
five hundred defenders while the English forces 
in the vicinity numbered seventeen thousand. 
To fight would plainly be a waste of life, and 
the place capitulated. The English had overrun 
the rest of the valley and all of Canada now 
became a possession of the British Crown. 



90 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

France did not lose its colony with unalloyed 
regret; for there were those to whom it did not 
seem altogether desirable. Voltaire, writing a 
year or two previous, said: "France and Eng- 
land are at war for several acres of snow, and 
are spending in the fight more than the whole 
of Canada is worth." In the same vein, at 
another time, he described the country as "cov- 
ered with snow and ice for eight months of the 
year, and inhabited by barbarians, bears and 
beavers." 

Similar feeling was voiced by Madame la 
Pompadour who, when it was learned that 
Quebec had been taken, is reported to have 
exclaimed with decidedly more elation than 
regret: "At last the king will be able to sleep 
peacefully." 

For good or for ill France was no more to 
control the destiny of "My Lady of the Snows," 
as Canada is sometimes called. The domain 
that passed into English hands was of tremen- 
dous extent, yet after all it had only a population 
of seventy thousand at this time. Seldom has 
a vanquished country been treated with more 
consideration and generosity. Free exercise of 
religion was assured to the people, and they 
were to remain in full enjoyment of their prop 



Early Montreal 91 

erty, including negro and Indian slaves. But a 
good many of the old patrician families would 
not change their allegiance and removed to 
France. This was a great loss to the St. Lawrence 
country. However, their places were gradually 
filled by emigrants from England, Scotland and 
Ireland, and there was an ever-rising tide of thrift 
and prosperity. 



THE MONTREAL OF TODAY 

1\ J'ONTREAL, with its population of four 
^^^ hundred thousand, is the financial and 
manufacturing metropolis of the dominion. 
Yet it is only comparatively recently that it 
became one of the great American cities. As 
late as 1810 it had no more than twelve thousand 
inhabitants, and it did not pass the hundred 
thousand mark until 1870. The secret of its 
growth lies in the fact that it occupies the center 
of a fertile plain nearly as large as England and 
stands at the head of ocean navigation. Its 
advantages as a distributing point make it 
Canada's chief port. Formerly its harbor was 
inaccessible to vessels drawing more than eleven 
feet of water on account of shallows down the 
river, but about 1850 the channel was deepened 
by dredging to twenty-seven feet, and the largest 
ships from the Atlantic can now come directly 
to its piers. Probably most people do not 
realize that Montreal is three hundred miles 
nearer to Liverpool than is New York, and one- 
third of the whole distance to Europe is by way 



The Montreal of Today 93 

of the smooth waters of the St. Lawrence. The 
river, however, is closed to navigation from the 
end of November to the beginning of April. 

Montreal is on an island of the same name, 
and this island is thirty-two miles long and from 
six to ten miles wide. By far the greater part of 
the river flows to the south of it, and the city 
extends from the busy wharves with their great 
warehouses and steamers and lesser craft back 
to the steep wooded sides of Mount Royal. The 
population is constantly becoming more cosmo- 
politan, yet more than half of it is still French. 
It is an attractive city in certain sections and 
occasional spots, but as a whole it impresses the 
stranger as dirty and dishevelled. Buildings 
that are dismally old and battered are plentiful 
right in the business center; and on the outskirts, 
in most directions, you find a helter-skelter of 
manufactories with their smoke-belching chim- 
neys and untidy surroundings. But there is no 
questioning the charm of the fine residence dis- 
trict, or that of the parks, or the attractiveness 
of many of the city buildings to which age or 
noble architecture, often combined with im- 
pressive size, lend distinction. 

In historic interest the structure that excels 
all others is the Chateau de Ramezay, built by 



94 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Claude de Ramezay, Governor of Montreal, in 
1705. Its age, its association with important 
events and its quiet and massive dignity combine 
to make it a fascinating landmark. From the 
crest of the hill on which it stands a little back 
from the river, the chateau used to command a 
wide view of the stream in both directions. But 
this view is curtailed now by tall buildings that 
crowd around the old mansion. In front is a 
narrow grassy yard with two or three old cannon 
on the sward, and this yard is separated from 
the busy street by an iron fence with sturdy 
stone gateposts. The walls of the chateau are 
fully two feet thick, there are turrets at the cor- 
ners and dorm^er windows in its broad, low- 
reaching roof. In the days of its glory it doubt- 
less ranked as palatial. Within its venerable 
walls, after the fall of Quebec, in 1760, arrange- 
ments were completed for the withdrawal of the 
last French garrison from Montreal, by which 
act the finest colony of France became the 
possession of England. The chateau was then 
in the heart of the most fashionable and im- 
portant part of the town, and for years after the 
British conquest it was the official residence of 
the English governors. 

At the time of the American invasion of 



The Montreal of Today 95 

Canada, early in the Revolution, three commis- 
sioners representing the rebelling colonies were 
sent to Montreal to attempt to win over the 
people of this northern realm to the American 
cause. They held their councils in the Chateau 
de Ramezay, which was the headquarters of the 
invading army. One of the commissioners was 
Benjamin Franklin. In order to prepare printed 
matter for distribution he brought with him a 
printer named Mesplat, for there was no printer 
in Montreal at that time. Mesplat's type cases 
and hand press were given space in the basement 
of the chateau and there he did his work. The 
approach of a hostile force put the commissioners 
to flight, but Mesplat remained in Montreal 
where he soon afterward began to publish the 
weekly Gazette, a newspaper still issued, and 
the oldest in this part of Canada. 

In 1778 the chateau became the property of 
the British Government, and in the century and 
more following it served various purposes. For 
a while it was the government headquarters, and 
there was a time when it housed a normal school, 
and for another period was in use for a medical 
branch of Laval University, and it also did duty 
as an annex to the court house. Finally it came 
nto possession of the Montreal Antiquarian 



96 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Society, and it today shelters what is perhaps the 
finest collection of historical works, portraits, 
and other relics in the country. Could anyone 
wish it a more appropriate fate ? 

I was interested in the quaint old rooms and 
their abounding memorials of the past, and I 
was no less interested in certain comments of 
one of the woman guardians of the treasures 
who criticised in a sociable and friendly way the 
Americans who visited the chateau. "I never 
saw such people for hurrying," said she. "They 
drive to the chateau in their carnages and jump 
out and run through here as if they were going 
to a house a-fire. I sometimes ask if the Old 
Nick is after them. What good do they get 
from such a hasty glimpse of the things we have 
here ? If I was them I wouldn't take the trouble 
to get out of the carriages. Of course there are 
a few not quite so rapid. I remember one man 
who stopped to look at the picture post cards we 
have to sell, and he picked up one with the 
Victoria Bridge on it, and says: Ts that the 
bridge I crossed coming into Montreal from 
America ?' 

"And where do you think you are now but 
in America ?' I said. 




The river road on Montreal Island 



The Montreal of Today 97 

"Your people have an idea that the United 
States is all there is to the whole continent. I 
think they do not study geography enough in 
your schools." 

"I have been in New England. Many peo- 
ple from Canada are living in the mill towns 
there. Once I was in a manufacturing place in 
Connecticut and rode in an electric car. It was 
crowded with men, women and children — and 
yet they spoke not a word of English — nothing 
but French. 'Great Scott!' I said, 'what a lot 
of Canadians there are here ! Have I got into 
Montreal without my knowledge V They were 
all my compatriots. Every man Jack of 'em 
was a Canadian." 

On the square in front of the neighboring 
court house formerly stood the town pillory, and 
here, in 1696, four Iroquois were burned by 
order of Count Frontenac in reprisal for similar 
barbarism on the part of the Indians. 

Close by, within sight of the serene and stout 
old chateau, is the chief city market. It is a 
perfect babel on market days. The country 
people are there from all the region around with 
their wagon loads of produce; and thither resort 
their customers, both dealers and private buyers. 
They are sure to dispose of everything they 



98 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

bring and never have left-over produce to carry 
home. Tov^ard the close of the day, if a man 
has not sold out, he may have to sacrifice some- 
thing on price, but the best of his load has been 
disposed of and he can afford to take less for 
what remains. The most interesting portion of 
the market is not inside of the great buildings, 
but in the open of a wide street on the hillside 
below the Nelson monument. There the wagons 
back up against a broad walk that affords a 
chance to partially remove their loads for the 
purpose of display and still leave a passage along 
the middle of the walk for customers. 

A few blocks distant, on the hill, is the Place 
d'Armes, a little park now hemmed in by the 
city but which was the scene of a desperate battle 
with the Indians in the days of the first settlers. 
Facing it on the south side is the Cathedral of 
Notre Dame, with its two lofty towers. In the 
west tower hangs the Gros Bourdon, one of the 
five largest bells in the world. It weighs twelve 
tons. In the other tower hangs a chime of bells, 
second to none in the northland. The church 
itself can easily contain over ten thousand wor- 
shippers, and the only church on this side of 
the Atlantic which exceeds it in capacity is the 
famous cathedral in the city of Mexico. With 



The Montreal of 1 oday 99 

the city crowding close around it, the immensity 
of the building is not readily realized, though 
the town vapors make the twin towers loom 
marvellously. In the dim quiet of the vast 
interior, after the eyes become accustomed to 
the twilight, you see that walls and ceiling and 
pillars, as well as all the furnishings are gorge- 
ously decorated. The abundance of color is 
perhaps rather florid, yet it is not without an 
oriental richness that is quite satisfying. 

There is a curious superstition that at the 
point where St. Sulpice and Notre Dame Streets 
meet, close by the towering cathedral, the wind 
is always blowing. The situation is naturally 
breezy; but there is a miraculous explanation 
of the phenomenon that is far more interesting 
than any scientific demonstration as to whys and 
wherefores. It seems that one day, while the 
church was in process of building, the Wind 
and the Devil were walking down Notre Dame 
Street; and the Devil after regarding with a 
frown of disapproval the graceful outlines of the 
new edifice rising before him exclaimed: "What 
is this ? I never saw it before." 

**Very likely not,*' responded the Wind, "and 
I dare you to go in there." 



100 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

"You dare me to do that, do you ?" cried the 
Devil with a sneer. "Well, I will go in if you 
will promise to wait here until I come out." 

"Agreed," said the Wind. 

So his Satanic Majesty went in. But he has 
not come out yet, and the Wind is still waiting 
for him at the corner. 

Another church of notable size that the 
stranger should not fail to see is the dome-sur- 
mounted edifice of St. James' Cathedral, mod- 
elled after St. Peter's at Rome. I have named 
only the two largest churches; but the leisurely 
visitor will find these far from being the only 
ones that appeal to his interest; for places of 
worship abound to such a degree that Montreal 
has become known as "The City of Churches." 
Many of the edifices are impressively large, and 
the architecture of their spires, towers or domes 
is so varied as to give each church an interesting 
individuality and distinction. 

A building of another sort which persons from 
the States will find of interest is the plain, 
antiquated warehouse in Vaudreuil Lane where 
John Jacob Astor laid the foundations of the 
Astor millions. 

Of all the Montreal structures, probably none 
is so widely known as the Victoria Bridge, the 



The Montreal of Today loi 

chief approach to the city from the south. I 
think most persons are a little disappointed in 
the actuality. Its resounding name is suggestive 
of a graceful stateliness, but it is simply a criss- 
crossing of iron beams resting on monotonous 
stone piers, and its chief claim to distinction is 
its great length of a mile and a quarter. There 
are twenty-five spans. The original bridge was 
completed in 1859, and the present one, which 
represents a cost of twenty million dollars, was 
finished in 1899. It occupies the same piers as 
the older structure and was put in place without 
interfering with the traffic. In the middle is a 
span three hundred and thirty feet long, but 
the others are about a hundred feet less. 

On a clear day you get from the bridge a 
striking panoramic view of the city with Mount 
Royal as a background. But a still better view 
of the place can be had, a little below from 
Helen's Isle, one of the most delightful of the city 
parks. This island, the name of which perpetu- 
ates that of Champlain's young wife, was pur- 
chased with her money by her famous husband. 
Somewhat later it was for a long period a French 
military station. To this island Marquis de 
Levis, the last commander of a French army in 
New France, retired and burned his flags in the 



102 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

presence of his troops on the night before the 
surrender of the colony to Great Britain. Here, 
beneath a ** weeping elm," he signed the articles 
of capitulation. 

There is much fine farming land in the out- 
lying region neighboring Montreal, and it is a 
pleasure to drive or ramble amid the apple 
orchards, smooth pastures and hay fields and 
the plots devoted to vegetables, small fruits, 
corn and oats. To my thinking the farm en- 
vironment is seen at its best on the lower road to 
Lachine. The outreaching of the suburbs has 
made chaos for the first few miles of the road, 
but beyond is a tranquil, tree-bordered rural 
thoroughfare winding along the river shore, and 
worthy even of Paradise. Graceful elms and 
stalwart Lombardy poplars and the delicate- 
foliaged willows are the prevailing trees. They 
only partially screen the river from sight and 
allow frequent and enchanting views of the 
broad, swift stream. There is a constant suc- 
cession of homes along the way, some of them 
almost at the waterside. The people seemed to 
have no fear of ravaging floods. On the bank 
of most streams, so little above the ordinary 
level of the current, the buildings could not exist 
for a single year. The flow of the St. Lawrence, 



The Montreal of Today 103 

however, is largely equalized by its vast inland 
reservoirs, the Great Lakes. In June the melt- 
ing snov^s of the far north bring the river up 
about six feet, but the stream can be depended 
on not to wildly exceed its usual limits, and the 
people for the most part dwell in safety and 
peace of mind alongside. The only exceptions 
are those who occupy certain positions that are 
unduly exposed to the ice when it breaks up in 
the spring. 

Until recently one of the attractions of this 
lower road was the quaint old stone house in 
which La Salle used to live. Even after it be- 
came a ruin it was still interesting, but of late 
its walls have been demolished to make fencing 
for the too thrifty owner of the property, and 
only weed-grown remnants remain. Another 
relic of the past is a windmill not far beyond the 
La Salle ruin; but it has lost its arms and is a 
mere stump in a brushy clump of trees. How- 
ever, buildings that date back into the stirring 
past of the French regime are not all obliterated 
or ruinous. Some of the wayside farmhouses 
and barns are still essentially what they were 
then, and it is a satisfaction to gaze on their 
stout-walled simplicity. 



104 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

The manufacturing town of Lachine presently 
interrupts the vernal roadway; but farther on 
the rustic thoroughfare resumes its winding 
course with bordering farms and summer homes 
and occasional toll-gates, and idyllic outlooks 
on the wide, island-dotted Lake St. Louis. 

When an opening in the trees or a lift of land 
gives a view in the other direction Mount Royal's 
sturdy mass is the dominant note in the land- 
scape. This mountain is in reality the shoulders 
of a volcano with the head blown off. In pre- 
historic ages it belched forth molten floods and 
wrote its daily history against the sky in fire and 
smoke. At that time it stretched the whole 
breadth of the island out into the present channel 
on the south, while in the other direction it 
swept far back toward the ancient Laurentide 
ranges. The loftiest fragment of its dismantled 
body today is Mount Royal which rises nine 
hundred feet above the sea, and seven hundred 
and forty above the river. Half a thousand 
acres of Mount Royal's higher portion is a park 
where the forest is preserved for the most part 
in a state of nature. The mountain rises very 
steeply from behind the city, but the crest of 
the bluff is easily reached by an incline elevator. 
A more agreeable way of going up and down, 







^ 



The Montreal of Today 105 

however, is by the winding, shady drives and 
paths. 

Cartier was the first white man to climb the 
height, and on it he planted a cross and gave 
the mountain its name. "Therefrom one sees 
very far," he wrote. The view is strikingly im- 
pressive. Immediately below, the woodland 
descends steeply, and gradually merges into the 
city streets. What a vast array of roofs and 
brick and stone walls, spires and domes and 
chimneys! and you hear the dull roar of the 
multitudinous traffic over the pavements. Be- 
yond, the great landscape is cut in twain by the 
river. Otherwise it seems an almost unbroken 
plain to the remote southern horizon where 
slumber ranges of shadowy mountains. It is a 
wonderful sight— that wide level with its varie- 
gated fields and woodlands and its dappling of 
blue cloud shadows; and its charm is probably 
fully as great today as when Cartier looked down 
on the scene from this same spot. 



VI 



THE OTTAWA 



JUST above the Island of Montreal the brown 
waters of the Ottawa join the clear green 
flood of the St. Lawrence, and for many miles 
the two flow side by side with apparently no 
tendency to intermingle. The Ottawa is itself 
a river of noble proportions, and from its junction 
with the St. Lawrence for a long distance up is 
so broad that this portion of it is called a lake — 
the Lake of the Two Mountains. 

The first white person to go up the river was 
a young man from Champlain's little colony in 
Quebec, who in 1610 accompanied a party of 
Indians to their home near the headwaters and 
wintered with them. The next year another 
young man, Nicolas de Vignau, did likewise and 
returned at the end of a twelve-month with a tale 
of having found a passage through to the north- 
ern seas; "for he was the most impudent liar 
that has been seen for many a day," says Cham- 
plain. But this comment on the adventurer's 
character was only made after Champlain had 



The Ottawa 107 

personally tested the accuracy of his statements. 
At first his story was accepted for truth and it 
was thought that the long-sought route to Asia 
had at last been revealed. So, in 1613, Cham- 
plain sailed up the St. Lawrence to Montreal, 
and starting from there with five companions in 
two canoes he set forth to explore the Ottawa. 
One of his party was an Indian, and another 
was Nicolas de Vignau. 

They advanced up the Lake of the Two Moun- 
tains, and kept on till the rapids of Carillon 
checked their course. So dense and tangled was 
the bordering forest that they had to trail the 
canoes along the bank with cords, or push them 
by main force up the current. In the smoother 
water above they met some canoes of friendly 
Indians. One of their number agreed to go on 
with Champlain, while the most awkward of 
the Frenchmen went down the river with them. 
Day after day the explorers paddled steadily 
onward, and at length, a little beyond the present 
city of Ottawa, they came in sight of the wild 
cataracts of Chaudiere foaming down the rocks 
and filling the region with their hoarse voice. 
On the brink of the plunging torrent Cham- 
plain's two Indians took their stand, and with a 
loud invocation threw tobacco into the stream. 



io8 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

an offering to the Manitou of the cataract. This 
was a customary ceremony here, and was sup- 
posed to insure a safe voyage. 

The party went on with much labor and scant 
food, and sometimes, as Champlain affirmed, 
** plagued beyond all description by the mosqui- 
toes." One day they had to carry through a 
pine forest where a tornado had passed, tearing 
up the trees and piling them one on another in 
a confusion of roots, trunks and branches. At 
last they came to Muskrat Lake, by the edge of 
which was an Indian settlement. Here was a 
rough clearing where the trees had been burned; 
but many dead, blackened trunks were still 
standing, and the ground was cumbered with 
stumps and charred fragments. In spots, how- 
ever, the soil had been feebly stirred with hoes 
of wood or bone and a crop of maize started that 
was now about four inches high. 

When the Indians observed Champlain's 
canoes approaching, they ran from their scat- 
tered bark huts to the shore in amazement at 
sight of the white men, whom they thought must 
have fallen from the clouds. But they welcomed 
the strangers hospitably and soon had a repast 
of fish ready for them. Champlain asked for an 
escort to guide him to other Indian settlements 



The Ottawa 109 

beyond, and his request was granted. At length, 
however, his journey was brought to an end by 
the discovery that the Indians of the region did 
not agree with Vignau about the country toward 
which Champlain was directing his quest for 
the passage to the northern seas. When Vignau 
was confronted with their assertions he broke 
down and confessed himself to be an imposter. 
The savages counselled that he should be killed 
at once for his deceit, and added: "Give him to 
us, and we promise you he shall never lie 
again." 

But Champlain, who now started homeward, 
allowed him to return with the rest. The French- 
men were attended by a fleet of forty canoes 
bound for Montreal; and on the way, while 
encamped for the night on an island, one of the 
Indians was visited with a nightmare. He leaped 
up screaming that someone was killing him. 
Instantly all his companions were on their feet, 
and, fancying an attack was being made by the 
Iroquois stampeded and ran splashing into the 
water. They waded out till it was almost up to 
their necks. Meanwhile the Frenchmen had 
seized their guns and were looking for the enemy 
that had caused the panic. Their search was 
fruitless, and they turned their attention to 



no The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

reassuring the warriors in the stream, who pres- 
ently waded ashore. 

When the party reached Montreal Champlain 
found there a number of his men. They had 
been hunting and revelling in a sylvan abund- 
ance while he, with much worry and fatigue, 
had been making his unavailing search for a 
passage to China. Nevertheless, the difficulties 
and disappointments of this trip did not deter 
him from going on another expedition up the 
Ottawa two years later. From the headwaters 
of the river he pushed on even as far as Lake 
Huron and spent the winter among the Indians. 
Not until the middle of July did he get back to 
Quebec, and as the Indians had reported that 
he was dead, he was welcomed as one risen from 
the grave. 

From the earliest advent of the white man, 
and the beginning of barter for the furs of the 
savages, the Ottawa was the main artery of 
Canada for this trade. It was therefore the 
constant effort of the Iroquois, who were ene- 
mies of the Northwestern tribes and usually 
antagonized the French as well, to close this 
thoroughfare so completely that the annual 
supply of beaver skins would be prevented from 
passing. They spent the latter part of each 



The Ottawa ill 

winter hunting in the forests between the 
Ottawa and the upper St. Lawrence, and, when 
the ice broke up, moved in large bands to the 
banks of the former and lay in ambush at the 
carries around the Chaudiere Falls and the 
various rapids. Many conflicts occurred be- 
tween them and the French, to whom the fur 
trade was almost the only source of wealth. The 
most notable of these combats was one that took 
place in 1660. Indeed, the courageous self- 
sacrifice of the whites engaged is almost with- 
out parallel in the bloody annals of Indian 
warfare. 

It became known in the spring of the year 
mentioned that unusual numbers of Iroquois 
had wintered among the forests of the Ottawa. 
Evidently some mischief was on foot and the 
conclusion was reached that the settlements on 
the St. Lawrence were in serious danger. To 
ward off the impending assault a young officer 
named Daulac, commandant of the garrison at 
Montreal, asked the governor of the town for 
leave to lead a party of volunteers against the 
enemy. He proposed to waylay them as they 
descended the river, and fight, no matter what 
the disparity of force. After some hesitation 
the governor gave his consent. 



112 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Daulac was a person of good family who had 
come from France three years before at the age 
of twenty-two. It was said that he had been 
involved in some affair that had brought dis- 
grace on him, and he was now anxious to win 
a new reputation by a noteworthy exploit. He 
invited other young men of Montreal to join in 
the enterprise, and sixteen responded. They 
bound themselves to accept no quarter and 
made their wills; and as they knelt to receive 
the sacrament for the last time before the altar 
in the chapel of the Hotel Dieu, the population 
of the town gazed on them with enthusiasm. 
Some of the older men begged them to wait till 
after the spring sowing that they might join in 
the expedition. But Daulac refused. He wanted 
both the glory and the danger. The oldest of 
his comrades was thirty-one, the youngest 
twenty-one. 

After a solemn farewell they embarked in 
several canoes, well supplied with arms and 
ammunition, and presently entered the mouth 
of the Ottawa and went up that broad expansion 
of the river known as the Lake of the Two 
Mountains. The party had not been long gone 
from Montreal when some friendly Hurons and 
Algonquins who stopped there learned of the 



The Ottawa 113 

expedition, and the wish seized them to share the 
adventure. They asked the governor for a letter 
recommending them to Daulac, and he complied 
so far as to write telling Daulac to accept or 
reject the reinforcement as he saw fit. So the 
Indians embarked and paddled in pursuit of 
the seventeen Frenchmen. 

Daulac and his companions had meanwhile 
passed with difficulty the swift current at Carillon, 
and about May first they reached the more for- 
midable rapid called the Long Sault. The tumult 
of waters, foaming among ledges and boulders 
barred the way, and it was decided to fight the 
enemy at this place. Just below the rapid, 
where the forest sloped gently to the shore, stood 
a palisaded fort, the work of an Algonquin war- 
party, the previous autumn. It was among the 
bushes and stumps of the rough clearing made 
in constructiHg it, and consisted simply of a 
circle of small tree-trunks, that was already 
ruinous. But the Frenchmen took possession 
of it, and made their fires and slung their ket- 
tles on the neighboring shore. Shortly after- 
ward they were joined by the friendly Hurons 
and Algonquins, to whom Daulac apparently 
made no objection, and they all bivouacked 
together. 



114 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

In a day or two their scouts brought word that 
five Iroquois in two canoes were coming down 
the rapids. Daulac had time to place some of 
his men in ambush at the point where it seemed 
likely the enemy would land. The canoes ap- 
proached and were greeted by a volley which 
was fired in too great excitement to kill all the 
warriors. One or more escaped into the forest 
and hurried back to relate their mischance to 
the rest of the party, two hundred in number, on 
the river above. Soon the entire fleet of canoes 
came coursing down the rapids, filled with 
warriors eager for revenge. The allies had 
barely time to escape to the fort. They repulsed 
a desultory attack, and the Iroquois fell to 
building a rude fortification that would serve 
them as a shelter in the adjacent forest. 

This gave the French a chance to strengthen 
their own defences. They planted a row of 
stakes within their palisade, leaving a space 
between which they filled with earth and stones 
to the height of a man. About twenty loop- 
holes were made, at each of which three men 
were stationed. But before this undertaking was 
finished the Iroquois, who had broken to pieces 
the birch canoes of the besieged and set fire to 
the bark rushed up to pile the blazing mass 



The Ottawa 115 

against the paHsade. The brisk and steady 
shots from the fort, however, drove them back. 
For a second time they made a dash at the fort 
and again were forced to retreat, leaving many 
of their number wounded on the ground . Among 
the fallen was the principal chief of the Senecas. 
Some of the French ran out, hacked off his head 
and stuck it on the palisade, while the Iroquois 
howled in helpless fury. Another attack quickly 
followed and was repulsed. 

This discouraged the enemy and they dis- 
patched a canoe to call to their aid five hundred 
warriors who were mustered at the mouth of 
the Richelieu. The two parties had intended to 
unite in an attack on Montreal, Three Rivers 
and Quebec. It was exasperating to have the 
grand enterprise halted by a mere handful of men 
in a forest fort that was no better than a cattle- 
pen. For five days and nights the assailants, 
from behind trees and logs, beset the fort. The 
allies fought and prayed by turns. Lack of 
water was their worst handicap. Some of them 
made a sally to the river and filled such small 
vessels as they had. Finally they dug a hole in 
the fort and were rewarded by a little muddy 
water oozing through the clay. 



ii6 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

The situation had grown so harassing that 
most of the Indian allies deserted to the enemy. 
Only five remained firm. On the fifth day an 
uproar of unearthly yells mingled with a clatter- 
ing salute of musketry, proclaimed the arrival of 
reinforcements. The five hundred had come 
from the Richelieu. The crowd of warriors mus- 
tered for an attack and cautiously advanced leap- 
ing from side to side and firing as they came on. 
But from every loophole of the fort darted a 
tongue of fire. The defenders not only had 
muskets, but heavy musketoons which scattered 
scraps of lead and iron among the savages, often 
maiming several at one discharge. The Iroquois 
fell back discomfited. Three days more wore 
away in a series of futile attacks. Some of the 
assailants were now for going home, but the 
majority were bent on revenge, and it was 
resolved to make a carefully planned general 
assault. Large and heavy shields four or five 
feet high were made by lashing together three 
split logs, and with these before them the leaders 
advanced followed by the motley throng of 
other warriors. This time they reached the 
palisade, and, crouching below the range of the 
bullets, hewed furiously with their hatchets to 
cut a way through. 



The Ottawa 117 

Daulac had crammed a large musketoon with 
powder and plugged the muzzle. He inserted a 
fuse, lit it and attempted to throw the weapon 
over the barrier to burst like a grenade among the 
crowd of savages; but the heavy gun struck the 
ragged top of one of the palisades, fell back and 
exploded. By this unfortunate accident several 
of the defenders were killed and disabled, and 
others were nearly blinded. In the confusion 
that followed, the Iroquois got possession of the 
loopholes, and fired through onto those within. 
A moment later a breech had been torn in the 
palisade. Daulac and his surviving followers 
sprang to defend it. Another breech was made, 
and then another. Daulac was struck dead, but 
there were still a few left to keep up the fight- 
With swords, hatchets and knives they struck and 
stabbed, till the Iroquois, despairing of taking 
them alive fired volley after volley and the last 
one fell. Then there was a burst of triumphant 
yells. 

The victors examined the bodies and found 
four Frenchmen still breathing. Life was only 
just flickering in three of them, and the Iroquois 
lost no time in burning them before they expired. 
The fourth seemed likely to survive, and they 
reserved him for future torments. Next they 



ii8 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

turned their attention to the Indian deserters 
from the fort. They had promised to treat them 
as friends, but now they burned several of them, 
and carried off the rest as captives to meet a 
similar fate in the Iroquois villages. Five of 
the number escaped, and it was from them, 
aided by admissions made long afterward by the 
Iroquois themselves that all knowledge of Dau- 
lac's glorious disaster was derived. This martyr 
foray was the salvation of the colony. For the 
time being the hostile savages had had fighting 
enough. 

Settlers were slow to establish themselves in 
the wilderness along the Ottawa, and for nearly 
two hundred years the only visitors were trappers 
and traders. At length, in 1796, a Massachusetts 
man built his cabin on the shore where the city 
of Hull now stands, just across the river from 
Ottawa, the capital of the dominion. But he 
and a few others who later joined him hardly 
made a noticeable impression on the wilderness 
until 1826. Then a government commission 
arrived to investigate possible routes and the 
expense of building a canal from the Ottawa to 
Lake Ontario. The desirability of such a canal 
was urged by the Duke of Wellington, who, 
admonished by the War of 18 12, thought it best 



The Ottawa 119 

to have a route from western Canada to Mon- 
treal independent of the St. Lawrence. This 
canal presently became a reality, and it winds 
through a very attractive section of country. 
Colonel By, one of the government representa- 
tives interested in the canal, started a village 
where the canal entered the Ottawa. This village 
under the name of Bytown had a population of 
one thousand within a few months. Twenty 
years later there were six thousand, and in 1855 
the place became a city and changed its name 
to Ottawa. 

For situation no Canadian city except Quebec 
can rival it. The whole river front presents a 
succession of bold promontories, some of them 
rising perpendicularly from the water's edge, 
clothed with pines and cedars, and separated 
from each other by small bays. 

In 1827, ^he same year that the canal was 
begun, work was started on a suspension bridge 
to cross the river. The initial connection with 
the opposite bank was obtained by firing a rope 
from a brass cannon. The first span constructed 
gave way and fell into the stream. While the 
second bridge was being built the chain cables 
broke, precipitating workmen and tools into the 



120 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

channel, and three of the men were drowned. 
Next a wooden bridge was attempted. It 
was nearly completed when a gale overturned it 
and it was carried down the stream. Still another 
bridge was presently started, and this time 
the fates were propitious. At least, it was com- 
pleted; but twelve years later it followed in the 
wake of its predecessors by collapsing into 
the river. Communication was thereafter by 
ferry until 1843, when the stream was again 
bridged. 

It was to a large degree a matter of chance that 
this particular place became the capital of the 
dominion. At one time Quebec was the 
capital, at another Toronto. In 1840 the British 
governor-general effected a union of Upper and 
Lower Canada and made Kingston the capital. 
Later Montreal took a turn at being the seat of 
government, and while it was enjoying this 
distinction the dominion parliament voted money 
to pay damages to those who had property de- 
stroyed in the "patriots' " rebellion. This meas- 
ure was extremely unpopular with many of the 
people, and when the governor. Lord Elgin, 
signed the bill, he was mobbed in the streets. 
The rioters then went to the House of Parlia- 



The Ottawa 121 

ment, turned out the members, and burned the 
building to the ground. That settled Montreal's 
fate as the capital of Canada. Queen Victoria 
was asked to choose a new site which should be 
the permanent capital, and in 1857 she selected 
Ottawa. The place was at that time a moderate- 
sized lumber town, but the magnificence of its 
site weighed strongly in its favor, and its position 
in relation to the population of the dominion 
was also favorable. 

The center of interest in Ottawa is the parlia- 
ment buildings. These are of imposing size and 
have not a little dignity and beauty in their 
architecture. Their attractiveness is much in- 
creased by their position on the most command- 
ing bluff overlooking the river and a great sweep 
of country roundabout. The lumber interests of 
Ottawa and the city of Hull just across the river 
are still of great importance, and there are many 
immense sawmills along the waterside. 

Hull, in the early days, was merely a landing 
place to portage around the neighboring Chau- 
diere Falls and later was a trading post, but is 
now a great milling and industrial center. It 
has been devastated by several serious fires, and 
the conflagration of April, 1900, nearly wiped 



122 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

it out. "The fire was begun by some woman 
burning a rubbish heap," a citizen informed me. 
"An awful wind was blowing that day and the 
fire got away. It swept everything before it, 
and great sticks of blazing timber were carried 
clear across the river and started a fire in Ottawa. 
There was such a heat it was impossible to get 
at all near to fight it, and it spread so fast the 
firemen sometimes had to run to save themselves, 
and they even had to leave their hose behind. 
They were driven back so hastily they couldn't 
turn the water oflF at the hydrants, and by and 
by the pressure was lost and they were about 
helpless. They couldn't do a thing in front of 
the fire and simply worked to prevent its spread- 
ing sidewise. It cleared a strip straight through 
the town and only stopped when there was noth- 
ing more to burn. I knew a carpenter who lost 
his life in the fire. He had got out of harm's 
way when he thought of his tools. He couldn't 
bear to lose them and he ran back to the shop 
intending to bring them away. That was the 
last ever seen of him." 

The burnt district was all built up within a few 
years and every trace of the ten million dollar 
loss eflPaced. This recuperative power and the 



The Ottawa 123 

general prosperity of the region is largely due to 
the abundance of water power. Canada is noted 
for the number of falls on its streams; but 
perhaps no district is richer in "white coal," as 
this power has been called, than the country 
around Ottawa. Inside the city limits alone 
there is one hundred thousand horse power, and 
within a radius of ten miles as much more. No 
wonder that the future of the region should be 
roseate with promise! 



VII 

THE RICHELIEU AND LAKE CHAMPLAIN 

^ I ^HE Lachine Rapids are the last escapade of 
-■- the St. Lawrence, and thenceforth it moves 
oceanward with serene majesty. Half way to 
Quebec the stream expands into Lake St. Peter, 
and beyond that point, inhaling and exhaling 
its mighty tides, it is much like an arm of the 
sea, and its waters presently become as salt as 
those of the ocean into which it flows. 

Lake St. Peter was named by Champlain, 
who happened to arrive there on the day that 
belonged to this particular saint. The method 
he adopted in conferring a name on Lake St. 
Peter is typical of the habit of the devout early 
French explorers, and the saints are abundantly 
in evidence in the nomenclature of the country. 
The chief town bordering the Lake is Sorel. 
I arrived there on the steamer late one Saturday 
night and went up into the town to find a hotel. 
At the first place where I stopped I could get 
no attention from the landlord. He was too 
busy at his bar serving the crowd of drinkers 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 125 

who are always out in force on the final evening 
of the week. At the next place I tried I secured 
a room, though here, also, the bar claimed the 
landlord's time to such a degree that he seemed 
to regret even the hastiest formalities, and 
quickly returned to his thirsty customers. 

I recall with somewhat similar interest the 
way in which I left Sorel. My wish was to go 
on by train from the other side of the river, and 
I hired a motor boat to take me across. It was 
a seven mile trip. Two men went to run the 
boat, and three more to keep the others company, 
and they carried along a stout bottle of whiskey 
from which they imbibed at intervals until I 
began to fear the liquor might impair their sea- 
manship. It was a reUef when the journey ended 
and I was once more safely on shore. 

Two historic tributaries join the great river 
at Lake St. Peter. These are the Richelieu and 
the St. Francis. Both were important pathways 
between the debatable valley of the St. Lawrence 
and the English settlements that neighbored the 
Atlantic to the east and south. Up and down 
these thoroughfares and their lakes passed and 
repassed the rival races of ancient Canada and 
New England. The Richelieu, in particular, was 
a great main war trail. By following it up to 



126 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Lake Champlain, and continuing thence by 
Otter Creek and Black River easy entrance was 
gained to New England. Or, turning westerly 
at the head of Lake Champlain, and passing 
through Lake George, only a short portage was 
needed to reach the Hudson. 

The first explorer of the river was Champlain. 
Near the end of June, 1609, with eleven other 
white men in a small shallop, and accompanied 
by a host of Indians in canoes, he left the newly- 
established town at the foot of Quebec's great 
rock and went up the St. Lawrence. At the 
mouth of the Richelieu, where is now the town 
of Sorel, the warriors encamped for two days 
hunting, fishing and taking their ease. They 
quarrelled, also, and as a result three-fourths of 
them took to their canoes and paddled off home. 
The rest pursued their course up the placid 
stream with its endless walls of verdure until it 
broadened out into the tranquil basin of Chambly. 
Above were rapids, and the shallop could go no 
farther. Champlain ordered it to return to 
Quebec with all but two of his white companions, 
while he went on to see the "great lake, full of 
fair islands and bordered with fine countries," 
of which his allies had told him. The Indians 
lifted their canoes from the water and bore them 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 127 

on their shoulders half a league through the 
damps and shadows of the woods to the smoother 
stream above. There were twenty-four canoes 
in all and sixty warriors. They observed a cer- 
tain system in their advance. Some went ahead 
of the main body as a vanguard, while others 
were in the forests on the flanks and rear, hunting 
for the subsistence of the whole. To be sure, 
they had a provision of parched maize pounded 
into meal, but they saved this for use when they 
should be so close to the enemy that hunting 
would be impossible. Late in the day the party 
would land, draw up their canoes and range them 
closely side by side. Rude bark-covered sheds 
were then made, dry wood was gathered for the 
fires, and trees were felled with which to form a 
defensive barricade on the landward side of the 
canoes and shelters. 

In the course of time Champlain came to the 
lake that now bears his name and went on amid 
the islands and broad reaches of water to the 
more open portion whence he could see the forest 
ridges of the Green Mountains far off in the 
east, while on the western horizon loomed the 
Adirondacks. 

The vicinity was becoming dangerous, and 
the party now moved only at night. All day 



■-^ 



128 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

they kept close in their forest camp, sleeping or 
lounging. About ten o'clock in the evening of 
July 29th, they approached a projecting point of 
land, which was probably the promontory since 
famous under its resounding Iroquois name of 
Ticonderoga. The word means the "meeting 
of the waters" and refers to the junction, close 
by, of Lake Champlain with the outlet of Lake 
George. As the allies were paddling softly 
along in the gloom they descried on ahead a 
flotilla of Iroquois canoes, and both parties 
began to shriek their war-cries. 

The Iroquois, who were near the shore, landed, 
and, making night hideous with their clamors, 
began to hack down the trees and erect a barri- 
cade. The allies remained on the lake, just 
beyond bowshot of the enemy, their canoes 
made fast together by poles lashed across. All 
night they danced with as much vigor as their 
situation and the frailty of their vessels would 
allow, and yelled defiance and abuse at the foe. 
Champlain and his two followers decided to 
keep the enemy in ignorance of their presence 
until later, and toward morning each man lay 
down out of sight in the bottom of the canoe he 
was in. 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 129 

When the dusky woodland shadows had been 
dispelled by the increasing light, the allies 
landed at some distance from the Iroquois. After 
a time, the latter filed forth from their barricade, 
two hundred strong, and advanced through the 
forest toward the invaders. Among them, made 
conspicuous by tall plumes, were three chiefs. 
Champlain now stepped out in front of the ranks 
of the allies, and the Iroquois stared in mute 
amazement at the warlike apparition. He wore 
the doublet and long hose then in vogue, and he 
had buckled on a breastplate and protected his 
head with a plumed casque. At his side hung 
his sword, and in his hand he carried his arque- 
buse, a short gun, something like the modern 
carbine. 

As soon as the Iroquois had a little recovered 
from their astonishment they made ready to 
shoot their arrows. Then Champlain leveled 
his arquebuse which he had loaded with four 
balls, aimed at the leaders and fired. Two of the 
chiefs fell dead, and the other was wounded. 
Immediately Champlain's Indian allies "set up 
such a yelling that one could not have heard a 
thunder-clap," and the arrows flew thick from 
both sides. The Iroquois were greatly aston- 
ished and frightened to see their men killed so sud- 



130 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

denly and mysteriously, and when one of the other 
white men fired a shot, they turned and fled. The 
allies dashed after them, and killed or captured 
many of the fugitives who abandoned camp, 
canoes and provisions, and flung down many 
of their weapons. That night, much to the 
horror of Champlain, the victors tortured and 
burned at the stake one of their prisoners. 

It was not safe to linger there in the enemy's 
country, and the allies promptly retreated. 
Three or four days later they were at the mouth 
of the Richelieu, and the whites went on down 
the St. Lawrence to Quebec, while the Indians 
with their prisoners went in the other direction 
toward the Ottawa. This single victory satisfied 
the savages for the time being. 

Champlain had by their aid explored an 
entirely new region and had the promise of their 
future help in pushing into the unknown to 
the west and north. In return for these favors 
he must continue to assist them against the Iro- 
quois. So the next year another foray was 
planned into the enemy's country. The Mon- 
tagnais who inhabited the Saguenay region went 
with Champlain and a number of other whites 
up the river and established themselves on an 
island at the mouth of the Richelieu to await the 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 131 

arrival of the confederates, the Hurons and the 
Ottawa Algonquins. Here they were on the 
nineteenth of June when a canoe was seen 
approaching in frantic haste. As soon as it was 
near enough for the Indians in the canoe to 
make themselves heard one of them ceased 
paddling and shouted that the Algonquins were 
in the forest, a league distant fighting with a 
hundred Iroquois warriors who were protected 
by a barricade of trees. 

At once the savages on the island seized their 
weapons and ran screeching to their canoes. Off 
they went accompanied by Champlain and four 
of his men. When the canoes reached a spot 
opposite the place of conflict the warriors landed 
and ran into the woods. It was beyond the power 
of the Frenchmen to keep pace with the light- 
limbed rabble, who quickly disappeared, and 
the white men found themselves deserted in the 
midst of a swamp. The day was sultry, and 
Champlain says : "The mosquitoes were so thick 
that we could scarcely draw breath." But they 
pushed on through mud and water and retarding 
vines and underbrush until they heard the yells 
of the combatants. Presently they came to a 
partial clearing made by the Iroquois axemen. 
On the borders of it gathered the allies. They 



132 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

had been repulsed and were afraid to renew the 
assault on the circular breastwork of trunks, 
boughs and matted foliage that the Iroquois 
had erected. The Frenchmen began firing, and 
when these mysterious and terrible assailants, 
clad in steel and armed with thunderbolts ran 
up to the barricade and shot death among those 
within, the defenders were overcome with terror. 
At every report they fell flat on the ground, and 
the allies quickly tore an opening in the barricade 
and the fight was soon over. All the band were 
killed and scalped except fifteen who were made 
prisoners and kept to be carried to the Indian 
villages where they would be put to death by 
the women and girls, with all the tortures that 
their savage ingenuity could invent. To cele- 
brate the victory the body of one of the slain Iro- 
quois was quartered and eaten, and there was 
much dancing and singing. Then the canoes 
were loaded, camp was broken and the victors set 
out triumphantly for home. 

As time went on and the numbers of the 
Europeans in the New World increased, the 
rival interests of the French and English made 
the Lake Champlain thoroughfare of vital im- 
portance. The advantage of gaining full 
mastery of it early became evident, and it was 




A Lake Champlain ferryboat 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 13J 

not long left without the protection of armed 
garrisons. In 1664 Fort Chambly, named after 
its builder, was erected at the foot of the rapids on 
the Richelieu, only a thirteen-mile portage from 
the St. Lawrence near Montreal. It was over this 
ancient portage that the first Canadian railway, 
begun in 1832, was constructed. 

At Chambly there is still a carefully preserved 
ruin of a stone fortress built in those long-gone 
times. Its outer walls are for the most part 
sturdily complete, and it stands in apparent 
guard over the waterway, at the foot of the 
rapids, just as of yore. An interesting touch of 
savage romance was imparted to the place, 
when I was there, by my finding within a few 
rods of the fort the stone head of a tomahawk. 
Who knows what barbaric deeds had been done 
with that sharpened bit of stone ? 

In 1 73 1 the French began to intrench them- 
selves on the western side of Lake Champlain at 
what they called Scalp Point, but which was 
known as Crown Point by the English. Here, 
toward its southern end, the lake suddenly con- 
tracts to the proportions of a river, so that a 
few cannon would stop the passage. Fort 
Frederic, as this advanced post of France was 



134 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

named, was a constant menace to New York 
and New England. 

The English, on their part prepared a string 
of strongholds extending from Fort William 
Henry, at the southern end of Lake George, well 
down toward Albany. Thus did the two jealous 
powers guard the "Grand Pass." 

During the fighting on the shores of Lake 
George in 1755 the French made intrenchments 
at Ticonderoga, or Carillon, as they called it, 
and they busied themselves all the next winter in 
building a fort on the promontory. This became 
a hornet's nest from which swarms of savages 
poured out to infest the highways and byways 
of the wilderness. The English headquarters 
were at Fort William Henry and rangers from 
there were constantly harassing the French. 
The most notable of these rangers was Major 
Robert Rogers, and nothing could surpass his 
adventurous hardihood. In February he and 
some of his men climbed a hill near Crown Point 
and made a plan of the works. Then they lay 
in ambush by an adjacent road and captured a 
prisoner, and before retreating burned several 
houses and barns and killed fifty cattle. Shortly 
afterward they went again to Crown Point, 
burned more houses and barns and reconnoitred 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 135 

Ticonderoga on the way back. Such excursions 
were repeated throughout the spring and 
summer. 

But the first notable clash at Ticonderoga 
between the opposing nations occurred in 1758. 
The English had assembled at Fort William 
Henry more than fifteen thousand men, the 
largest army that had ever been collected in 
North America. General Abercrombie was the 
English commander, an elderly man raised to 
his place by political influence; but the actual 
direction of the army devolved on Brigadier 
Lord Howe. The latter was in his thirty-fourth 
year, and he was full of energy and activity and 
had the confidence of the army from general to 
drummer-boy. He had studied the art of forest 
warfare by joining Rogers and his rangers in 
their scouting parties, and sharing all their hard- 
ships. By his orders officers and men threw off 
all useless incumbrances, cut their hair close, 
wore leather leggings to protect them from briers, 
and carried meal in their knapsacks, which they 
could at any time cook for themselves. In all 
such things he himself set the example. 

On the fifth of July the whole army embarked 
in bateaux and canoes on Lake George and the 
next day landed at its north end. A detachment 



136 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

under Rogers plunged into the woods to lead 
the way toward Ticonderoga, but presently came 
unexpectedly on a party of French who greeted 
them with a volley of musketry. Among those 
who dropped dead was Lord Howe. This little 
skirmish wrecked the fortunes of the army, 
which blundered in nearly every move afterward. 
When it was sent forward to drive the French 
from their works by a direct assault it was 
attempting the impossible. A ridge extended 
across the plateau northwest of the fortress, 
and Montcalm, the French commander, had 
fortified it by felling trees and making a zigzag 
parapet. In front of the parapet the ground 
was covered with a tangle of boughs, many of 
which had sharpened points projecting away 
from the line of defence to embarrass an ap- 
proaching foe. On the morning of the eighth 
the English infantry pressed forward with orders 
to carry the works by a bayonet charge. But 
as soon as they got among the bristling boughs 
the charge was broken and from the zigzag 
bastions ahead of them came a storm of grape 
and musket shot to which they could make no 
effectual reply. They struggled in vain to force 
their way through the obstructions, and at length 
retreated. During the afternoon they made no 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 137 

less than six successive assaults and lost two 
thousand in killed and wounded. Montcalm, 
with his coat ofF, for the day was hot, directed 
the defence, moving to any part of the line where 
the danger for the moment seemed greatest. 

It might still have been possible for Aber- 
crombie to adopt some other plan of action that 
would have been successful, but his spirit and 
that of his army was broken. The entire force 
withdrew in a panic, and when the French 
reconnoitred as far as Lake George the next 
morning they found several hundred barrels of 
provisions and a large quantity of baggage that 
had been left behind; and in a marshy place 
that the defeated troops had crossed were numer- 
ous shoes, which had stuck in the mud, and 
which they had not stopped to recover. 

But while the French were victorious at Ticon- 
deroga they suffered reverses elsewhere, and the 
next year they felt obliged to relinquish Lake 
Champlain. When, therefore, an English army 
again arrived in the vicinity of Ticonderoga and 
began operations for capturing the stronghold, 
the garrison slipped away one night in their 
boats. Shortly afterward a broad fierce glare 
illumined the promontory and there was a stu- 
pendous crash as a mine beneath the fort 



138 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

exploded. But only one bastion had been 
hurled skyward, and the English took possession 
and set about repairing the damaged works. 
Before they were ready to move against Crown 
Point, that also had been deserted. 

With the outbreak of the American Revolution 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point once more became 
objects of importance. They commanded the 
northern approaches to the Hudson River, the 
strategic center of the whole country. Besides, 
they contained a vast quantity of military stores 
that would be a great aid to the colonial recruits. 
Two expeditions prepared to march against 
them, one consisting of men from the western 
hills of Massachusetts under Benedict Arnold, 
and the other of "Green Mountain Boys" of 
Vermont under Ethan Allen. The two parties 
united, with Allen as leader. They reached the 
east side of the lake on the night of May 9, 1775; 
but not nearly enough rowboats could be found 
to convey the men across. Delay would be fatal, 
and so with only eighty-three followers Allen and 
Arnold crossed to the other side and at daybreak 
climbed the ridge to the fortress. The little 
garrison was completely surprised and sur- 
rendered without a struggle. At the same time 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 139 

Crown Point surrendered to another detachment 
of the colonials. 

Ticonderoga was carefully strengthened until 
it was believed to be impregnable; but a neigh- 
boring point which commanded the whole 
position was neglected. Less than a mile to the 
south the narrow mountain range between 
Lakes Champlain and George ends abruptly in 
a bold crag that rises six hundred feet above the 
blue waters. The Americans were aware that 
a hostile battery planted on this eminence would 
render their stronghold untenable, but they be- 
lieved it was impossible to get siege guns up the 
steep ascent. However, when Burgoyne's army, 
in midsummer, 1777, came from Canada to 
conquer the Hudson Valley, and arrived in the 
vicinity of Ticonderoga they at once investigated 
this mountain. A narrow defile was found 
screened from the view of the fort, and here 
relays of men labored breaking out a pathway 
and dragging up cannon. Great was the aston- 
ishment of the garrison on the morning of July 
fifth to see red coats swarming on the summit of 
the crag, which the British, rejoicing in their 
exploit, named Mount Defiance. In another day 
the cannon on the height would be ready for 
work. Ticonderoga was no longer tenable. 



140 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

and that night the garrison withdrew across 
the lake. 

In later years the fort was neglected and 
became a ruin. Roundabout was a great 
pasture where cows and horses grazed, and the 
old embankments were much overrun with 
clumps of thorn trees and cedars and thickets of 
poplars. But now the ancient fortress is being 
restored by a private individual, not for warlike 
purposes but as a matter of historic interest. 

It is a fascinating place to visit, and so is old 
Fort Frederic. The latter is five miles north of 
the village of Crown Point, and one autumn day 
I went thither on foot. The weather was not 
very propitious. There were low-hanging gray 
clouds that enveloped the hills in filmy mists 
and at intervals sent down a foggy precipita- 
tion. The grass was loaded with waterdrops, 
the trees kept up a sober dripping, and the 
walking was decidedly muddy. The road 
rambled along amid pleasant farming country 
with the lake often in view. When I reached 
the fort, the western shore turned at an abrupt 
angle and the waterway which hitherto had been 
so narrow as to resemble a sluggish river reached 
away northward in an expanse of considerable 
breadth. Right at this angle were the mighty 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 141 

earthworks of the grim old fort. They are still 
largely intact, and behind them are the ruins 
of the stone barracks and other buildings. Here 
and there grow scattered trees to relieve the 
bareness of the grass-grown embrasures, and 
up the road just beyond the earthworks that are 
so suggestive of conflict and untimely death is a 
peaceful farm with its snug dwelling and broad- 
roofed barns. 

Probably the most widely famous natural 
attraction in the Lake Champlain region, aside 
from the lake itself, is the Ausable Chasm. To 
reach it the traveller leaves the main line of 
railway at Port Kent and takes a branch line 
that carries him three miles back inland. Here 
is a green valley with a little river entering a 
narrow rift in the big hill that lies between it and 
Lake Champlain. When I descended by the 
steep zigzag stairs into the chasm and looked up 
the stream I had in full sight a beautiful white 
cascade at the entrance to the defile, and near 
at hand were lesser falls and tumultuous rapids. 
I went on down the gorge, sometimes on narrow 
shelves of rock well up above the water, some- 
times on broader masses down by the stream. 
There was a regular route carefully prepared, 
with stairs at steep places, and protecting iron 



142 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

railings where the path clung high along the 
side of the cliff. It was a crooked way, now up, 
now down, and with many twists and turns. 
The heights, far above, were crowned with 
ragged trees, and down below was the gloomy 
channel and the sinister attenuated stream 
seemingly black as ink, and streaked with snowy 
foam. Once in a while there was a rift in the 
frowning walls, and a damp wooded ravine 
slanted steeply down to the river, and in the face 
of the cliffs were numerous small caves and 
niches. All these features, as well as various 
oddly fashioned projections, had been duly 
named and labeled, and, in consequence the 
chasm has a grotesque museum-like aspect 
which I did not wholly appreciate. But it is 
nevertheless a grim and stupendous gorge, and 
is one of the most impressive specimens of 
nature's carving east of the Rocky Mountains. 
After a mile of walking the path comes to an 
end, and those who choose can continue the 
journey somewhat farther by boat — a rather 
exciting voyage if the water is high. 

Long ago a highway crossed the chasm by a 
bridge that spanned one of its deepest portions, 
and the story is told of a doctor who one day 
crossed the bridge on horseback to visit a patient 



The Richelieu and Lake Champlain 143 

in the region. He was detained until late at 
night. Meanwhile some workmen had started 
to repair the bridge, and they took up all the 
planking. When the doctor reached home he 
was asked by what road he came. He replied 
that he had crossed the bridge as usual, and as 
the night was clouded and dark he had not 
observed but that it was in its ordinary condition. 
That he had actually crossed it did not seem 
possible, yet when the bridge was examined the 
marks of a horse's hoofs were found on one of the 
stringers, and it was evident he had had an almost 
miraculous escape from a plunge to death in 
the wild chasm. 

On my return to Port Kent I found the wind 
blowing briskly, and the blue waters of the lake 
were lashing the shore in white-capped breakers. 
It here reaches its greatest breadth, but as the 
day was clear I could see the opposite shore 
distinctly and on the horizon were several 
mountain ranges that seemed imposingly high 
in the azure distance. 



VIII 

THE HISTORIC ST. FRANCIS 

TN pioneer times the importance of the St. 
-^ Francis River as a highway between the St. 
Lawrence and the country to the south was 
second only to that of the Richelieu. From the 
valleys of the Connecticut and of the Merrimac, 
and thence through the gateway of the wilder- 
ness lakes and down the St. Francis passed 
more English captives to Canada than on all 
other routes combined. This tributary of the 
St. Lawrence has known the wail of human 
distress at every turn in its winding course, and 
has witnessed many a savage tragedy. 

Near its mouth was an Indian village with the 
same name as the stream, the inhabitants of 
which were nominally Christians, though they 
remained thorough savages in dress, habits and 
character, and were the scourge of the New 
England borders. In' September, 1759, Major 
Robert Rogers, who had won much fame as a 
forest ranger, was sent against this village. He 
and his men went in bateaux up Lake Cham- 




The waterfalls at the entrance to the Ausahle Chasm 



The Historic St. Francis 145 

plain to its north end, where they hid the boats 
and left two friendly Indians on guard. The 
party then began its march, but on the second 
day out the two Indians overtook Rogers with 
the startling intelligence that about four hundred 
French had found the bateaux and that half the 
force was on his trail in hot pursuit. Other 
parties would doubtless soon be warned of his 
presence in the northern wilderness, and his 
danger was serious. 

He determined, however, to outmarch his 
pursuers and to go on and strike St. Francis be- 
fore it could receive help. That done, he would 
return by way of Lake Memphramagog and the 
Connecticut River. For nine days more he toiled 
northward, much of the time through dense 
spruce swamps with no dry resting-place at 
night. Then he drew near to his destination, and 
one day, toward evening, Rogers climbed a tree 
and descried the town three miles distant. 

Accidents, fatigue and illness had reduced his 
followers to one hundred and forty-two, but he 
was not dismayed. Accompanied by two officers 
he went to reconnoitre the place, and on its 
borders left his companions and entered the 
village disguised in Indian garments. He found 
the savages yelling and singing in the full enjoy- 



146 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

ment of a grand dance. After a satisfactory 
survey he rejoined his party, and at three o'clock 
in the morning he and his men burst in on the 
town. Many of the warriors were absent, and 
the rest were asleep. Some were killed in their 
beds, and others were shot down while trying to 
escape. In all, fully two hundred of them per- 
ished. The women and children were allowed 
to get away, excepting two boys and three girls 
who were carried off prisoners. Hundreds of 
English scalps were dangling from poles over 
the doors of the houses, and five English captives 
were found in the place. The town was hastily 
pillaged and set on fire, and the retreat began. 
Until the rangers reached Lake Memphramagog 
they subsisted on corn from the Indian town. 
Then the supply failed, and they separated into 
small parties, the better to sustain life by hunting. 
The enemy was now close behind, and twenty or 
more of the rangers were killed or captured. 
After much suffering the rest reached the Con- 
necticut River, and eventually the half-starved 
remnants of the expedition were welcomed in 
the outlying settlements. Thus ended one of the 
most daring wilderness forays on record. 

The headwaters of the St. Francis are a 
tangle of minor streams, the most important one 



The Historic St. Francis 147 

being the outlet for Lakes Magog and Mem- 
phramagog. The latter lake, which is the larger 
of the two, is an immense trough extending 
north and south across the border line between 
Vermont and Canada. Its western shore is bold 
and striking, being skirted by a detachment of 
the Green Mountains, the main range of which 
can be seen careering along the horizon far in 
the southwest. To the east and north, however, 
the country is flat and monotonous. 

Not far from the junction of the waters of this 
lake with those of the St. Francis stands Sher- 
brooke, the city of fairs, whose tapering spires 
on the neighboring hillslopes are visible for miles 
around. The fairs which have given it such wide 
fame are an annual autumn institution. They 
begin on Monday and last five days. Visitors 
journey hundreds of miles to enjoy the occasion. 
It is an all-round show, contrived to suit both 
the agricultural and the sporting elements. For 
the delectation of the former there are farm 
exhibits in endless variety. I suppose the pleas- 
ure-seekers from a distance are also to some 
degree interested in the farm products, and they 
enjoy the stimulus of the crowd and the individ- 
uality of the rustics who have flocked in from 



148 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

the country, but they are present chiefly for the 
racing and betting. 

The town is only a little beyond the American 
borders, yet it is in most respects typically 
Canadian. Two-thirds of the people are French, 
and the dividing line between them and the 
English is rather sharply drawn. Marriage 
between the races is rare, partly because as a 
class the French represent the poor, and the 
English the well-to-do, but mainly because the 
difference in religion of the two races is construed 
to be an impassable barrier to matrimony. 
French is the language commonly heard on the 
streets and in the stores and other public places. 
Much of the instruction in the parochial schools 
that the Catholics so faithfully attend is in their 
language, though the children are also obliged 
to learn English. I wondered if the double 
burden in the matter of language was not some- 
thing of a handicap. It is of course not a 
peculiarity of Sherbrooke, for a large portion of 
Canada is bi-lingual, and public notices are 
usually printed in both French and English. 

An American visitor is likely to consider Sher- 
brooke's churches one of its most striking 
features. These are decidedly more prominent 
than are the churches in places of similar popu- 



The Historic St. Francis 149 

lation in the States. Our much-divided Protest- 
ants of necessity lag far behind the Catholic 
Canadians in the impressiveness of their houses 
of worship. The Canadian parishes include a 
very large number of people, and the churches 
seem to be their chief pride. Consequently, the 
buildings, in size and in the loftiness of their 
spires, are apt to loom up prominently above all 
their surroundings. The people in general — men,> 
women and children — can be depended on to be 
present regularly at Sunday mass, and when the 
services end the streets are full of returning 
worshippers. A good many of the men are 
smoking their pipes as they go plodding home- 
ward. They are inveterate tobacco users — these 
Canadians — and the boys, with sham smartness,, 
start to puff at pipes and cigarettes pitiably 
young. 

On the pleasant Sunday in early autumn that 
I was in Sherbrooke, although crowds attended 
church, these were far from including the entire 
population. There were loiterers about the 
houses, and in boats on the water, and I heard 
the gunshots of hunters rambling in the woods. 
At the waterside a lad who was fishing told me 
how a sturgeon had been caught near by a 
month before. As he described it, the fish was a 



150 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

veritable young whale in size and strength. 
Indeed two men struggled with it in vain until 
one of them waded in and jabbed the creature 
a few times with his jack knife. 

While we talked a boatload of boys got 
stranded out in midstream. They splashed and 
swore, and each gave vigorous orders to the 
others; but there they stuck hard and fast. My 
friend said they were on their way to a wild little 
island which he pointed out, and where he said 
there were bushels of butternuts to be had for 
the picking-up. Presently a swarthy-faced 
woman came down to the shore and shouted 
directions which finally proved effective. They 
got off, came to where the woman was, and she 
stepped into the boat herself and rowed them to 
the island. 

After mass the churchgoers also became 
pleasure-seekers, and each person followed his 
inclination, and rested, or loafed, or amused 
himself in some more strenuous way. A good 
many went to the saloons for drink. Nominally 
the saloons were closed on Sunday, but I ob- 
served that the wise knew how to gain entrance 
by a rap at a secluded door. 

Early in the afternoon the students from a 
Catholic college filed along the sidewalk past 



The Historic St. Francis 151 

my hotel in a procession that seemed for a while 
likely to prove endless. They were mostly from 
ten to fifteen years of age, and in their long Prince 
Albert coats and flat-crowned caps looked 
awkward and raw. They marched in twos in 
charge of black-gowned, shovel-hatted priests, 
and I could not but think of them as machine- 
educated and repressed, separated from the 
pleasures and warm affection of home, and living 
lives pathetically narrow. On this occasion they 
were going to a playgrouud to spend the after- 
noon in games. They certainly showed no 
evidence of frisky and joyous anticipation, and I 
wondered if the games were not of a sober and 
lugubrious character supposedly suitable to the 
day in the ideals of the priestly educators. 

Many of the humbler homes of the town were 
decidedly shabby, carelessly placed, unsub- 
stantial, and often only partially finished. Yet 
on a Sunday, at least, you may see around these 
poor dwellings women and children so daintily 
dressed that you are inclined to doubt that those 
really are their homes. Apparently they are 
bound to have fine, raiment at all hazards, even 
if the house goes to pieces over their heads. 

The children in a family are pretty sure to be 
numerous, though, as one man explained, a good 



152 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

many die; and I judged from his tone that he 
thought this a not altogether undesirable relief 
from a too heavy burden. He said the people 
in Sherbrooke were too numerous for the amount 
of work that was to be had, and when a man lost 
a job it took him about three months to find 
another. So it was a common habit with the 
young men to go to the United States to seek 
work. But after staying long enough to accumu- 
late a snug sum they were apt to return and buy 
a little farm. 

The St. Francis River is here rather broader 
than one can throw a stone across, and alternates 
with swift shallows and smooth depths. The 
houses and factories of the town along the shore 
are not very prepossessing, but above and below 
is pleasant farming country close at hand. That 
the river was sometimes a furious flood was 
evident from scars along the banks, and I ques- 
tioned a young fellow paddling about in a boat 
as to whether the dwellers in those houses so 
close to the raging waters did not sometimes 
furnish victims to the river. 

"Yes," he replied, "there's one or two drowned 
every spring. They're usually young ones playin' 
around the water, and they over-balance, and in 
they go. I came near getting drowned myself 




f^ 



The Historic St. Francis 153 

once. I was quite a boy at the time, but I hadn't 
learned to swim. Another fellow was with me. 
He was used to being around the river and he 
wasn't a bit afraid of it. He could stand on a 
log out in the current just the same as if he was 
on dry land; and he was showing off what he 
could do. It looked so easy to ride on a log that 
I tried it, but the thing went from under me and 
I got plumped into the water. I couldn't grip it 
afterward because it kept rolling over and over. 
I had gone down twice when the other fellow 
pushed out in a leaky old boat to where I was 
and grabbed me." 

On the banks were numerous piles of logs 
among the little houses. These had come down 
in the floods and were much battered by ice and 
rocks with which they had come in contact. 
Most of the logs had been sawed and split enough 
so that the fragments could be easily handled. 
The bank dwellers were sure of two or three 
floods a year, but these do not furnish as bounti- 
ful a harvest of driftwood as formerly. The 
sawmills allow less to escape them and more 
people live along shore to catch what is afloat. 

"I've seen the stream full of it, years ago," 
commented one man; "and there's lots of it 



154 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

comes down yet — Oh, gosh, yes! The families 
on the bank get all they can burn themselves and 
there are those who have a surplus to sell.'* 

Some of the floodwood can be captured from 
the shore, but the people do not hesitate to go 
out into the swift current with their boats, drive 
a hook into a log and row to land with it. Even 
the ice which accompanies the spring flood does 
not deter them. 

I chatted for a while with a shore dweller 
whose most conspicuous garment was a long 
linen duster. He explained very intelligently the 
characteristics of the river until a church bell 
began ringing. Then he at once branched off 
into a strange religious medley to this effect: 
"God is in jail or He ought to be; and this world 
is not run right. Most anytime it may tip up 
and we'll all slide off the edge. When that 
happens where will Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob and Bridget and Mary and you and me 
be ? I want you to tell me that." 

His voice rose as he went on, his words came 
more rapidly, his eyes grew wildly bright, and at 
frequent intervals he explosively appealed to me 
to know if what he said was not so. But the 
man's philosophy was too intricate for my 



The Historic St. Francis 155 

capacity, and I embraced the first opportunity 
to withdraw. One of his fellow-townsmen later 
informed me that I had been talking with Billy 
Bush, and in explanation of his peculiarities said: 
"A girl give him the cold shoulder when he was 
young, and he went bughouse over it." 



IX 

Quebec's eventful history 

SAMUEL de Champlain, the founder of 
Quebec, was only thirty-six years of age, 
when, in 1603, he first voyaged up the St. Law- 
rence; but he was already an experienced and 
skilful seaman and a practiced soldier. He was 
a man of great activity, daring and enterprise, 
and at the same time he was firm, honest and 
cheerful. To his patrons he was always faithful, 
and to those under him he was just and consider- 
ate. On this first voyage, with two little vessels, 
he went as far as Montreal, but accomplished 
nothing more than to gain a knowledge of the 
river. 

Five years later he again came sailing "up the 
St. Lawrence, this time in a single ship, and 
anchored off the rock of Quebec. The Indian 
village of Stadacona had crowned the bluff in 
Cartier's time, but this had disappeared. Cham- 
plain was prepared to attempt a permanent 
settlement, and Quebec's commanding height 
appealed to him as an excellent site for a fortified 



Quebec's Eventful History 157 

post. It was his hope that when the town was 
once started and the position made secure, 
expeditions could start thence to explore the 
waters of the interior and find a western route 
to China and India. Moreover, the fur trade 
could be developed, and last, but not least, the 
souls of the savages could be saved by giving 
them the Christian religion. 

Between the base of the cliff and the river was 
a gentle wooded slope, a few rods wide, where 
the marketplace of the lower town now is. 
Champlain's axemen felled the trees, shaped 
them into timbers and erected three buildings 
for the shelter of the colony. These were in- 
closed by a strong wooden wall behind which 
was a gallery loopholed for musketry. A moat 
surrounded the whole, and two or three small 
cannon were mounted on platforms to command 
the river. A garden was laid out on the ground 
adjacent. 

One morning, while Champlain was at work 
in this garden, his pilot approached him with 
an anxious countenance and requested in a low 
voice to speak with him in private. They retired 
into the neighboring woods where the pilot 
informed his chief that a locksmith named 
Duval and three accomplices had befooled or 



158 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

frightened nearly the whole company into a plot 
to kill Champlain, either by strangling him in 
his bed, or by raising a false alarm in the night 
and shooting him as he came out from his 
quarters. They were dissatisfied with the labor 
of felling trees and of preparing for cultivation 
ground that was so full of stones, roots and 
stumps. So they proposed to win a rich reward 
by delivering Quebec into the hands of a party 
of Basques that was at Tadousac. 

There were a few men on whom Champlain 
could still depend, and at ten o'clock that 
night he had the four ringleaders seized. Most 
of the colony was asleep, but Champlain had 
everyone roused and told them of the discovery 
of the plot and of the arrest of Duval and his 
three comrades. Pardon was then promised to 
the frightened gathering and they were dis- 
missed to their beds. The next day DuvaFs 
body swinging from a gibbet, and his head dis- 
played on a pike from the highest roof of the 
buildings, food for birds, gave warning to any 
who might be inclined to plot in the future. 

On the lower river was a trading vessel 
commanded by a merchant named Pontgrave. 
This had been sent out under the same auspices 
as the one that brought over Champlain's colony, 



Quebec's Eventful History 159 

and in the autumn it carried back to France a 
portion of the men at Quebec, leaving him with 
only twenty-eight men to hold the place through 
the winter. A roving band of Indians came and 
built huts near the fort and busied themselves 
catching eels, which were a main reliance for 
sustaining their miserable lives in the months of 
frost and snow. After this slimy harvest had 
been gathered and smoked and dried, they turned 
it over to Champlain for safe-keeping and went 
off to hunt beavers. It was midwinter when 
they came back, and they then settled down to 
a life of idleness in their smoky birch-bark 
cabins. Sometimes their dreams or chance 
noises in the night frightened them into the 
belief that a war party of their enemies was 
making a descent on them, and they would go 
flocking in a body to beg admission into the fort. 
Champlain allowed the women and children to 
enter the yard and stay till morning, but he feared 
treachery if he gave the men the same liberty, 
and they stood and shivered in the darkness 
outside. 

On one occasion a group of wretched savages 
appeared on the farther bank of the St. Lawrence 
evidently desirous to cross. The river was full 
of drifting ice, but the Indians had canoes and 



i6o The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

they embarked. Midway the ice caught and 
destroyed the canoes. The occupants of the 
boats, however, escaped onto a huge raft of ice, 
the squaws carrying the children on their shoul- 
ders. Then they set up a despairing wail, but 
happily the ice was driven against the northern 
shore and they got safely to land. They were 
worn to skeletons and nearly famished. Food 
given them by the French was devoured with 
frenzied avidity, and then, still unappeased, they 
took possession of a dead dog that Champlain 
had left on the snow as a bait for foxes. They 
broke this carrion into fragments, and thawed 
and devoured it. Such famine conditions were 
not unusual among the Algonquins of the lower 
St. Lawrence, for they never tilled the soil and 
made no adequate provision against a time of 
need. 

Toward the end of winter scurvy broke out 
with virulence among the French, and by the 
middle of May there were only eight survivors. 
Pontgrave was back from across the Atlantic 
the next month, and it was agreed that Cham- 
plain, whose health and courage had remained 
unshaken, should set out to find a way to China. 
As a means of furthering this enterprise, he had 
already made an alliance with the Canadian 







On the St. Francis at Sherhrooke 



Quebec's Eventful History i6i 

Indians and had agreed to join them in an ex- 
pedition against their enemies, the Iroquois, who 
dwelt in fortified villages within the limits of the 
present state of New York. So in the early 
summer of 1609 the Hurons and Algonquins 
resorted to Quebec, pitched their camps and 
bedecked themselves for a war-dance. The 
dance occurred in the evening. Plenty of wood 
had been collected for the fires which blazed 
brightly and lighted the gloomy face of the 
cliff, and the glare fell full on the tawny limbs 
and painted visages of the dancers and on 
brandishing war-clubs and tomahawks, while the 
drum kept up its hollow boom, and the air 
resounded with yells. A feast followed, and the 
next day the allies embarked to proceed against 
the Iroquois by way of the river Richelieu. 

The expedition was successful from the 
Indian point of view; for a war-party of the 
enemy was defeated and the invaders safely re- 
treated. As for Champlain he gained important 
knowledge of one of the great natural highways 
of the wilderness, and by his alliance with the 
savages was enabled to make several long trips 
later up the Ottawa and to the Great Lakes. 

Meanwhile Quebec grew very slowly. In 
1 6 15 four Recollect friars arrived there from 



1 62 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

France. Great was the perplexity of the 
Indians when these strangely-garbed men landed 
beneath the rock. Their apparel was mainly 
composed of a rude garment of coarse gray cloth, 
girt at the waist with a knotted cord and fur- 
nished with a peaked hood, while their feet were 
shod with thick-soled wooden sandals. They 
made an altar close by the fortified dwellings 
and storehouses, and then celebrated the first 
mass ever said in Canada. Nearly all New 
France kneeled on the bare earth around the 
officiating priest, while cannon boomed from 
the ship and the ramparts. 

About a mile back, on the bank of the St. 
Charles, the friars built for themselves in 1620, 
a small stone house with ditches and outworks 
for defence, and here they began a farm and 
stocked it with a few hogs and fowls and a pair 
of donkeys. The only other agriculturist in 
the colony was Louis Hebert who had crossed 
the Atlantic in 16 17 with a wife and three chil- 
dren, and had made for himself a house perched 
on the rock up above the settlement. The entire 
permanent population numbered only fifty or 
sixty, so that the chronicler could not have been 
very much amiss when he declared that the fort 



Quebec's Eventful History 163 

had two old women for garrison and a brace of 
hens for sentinels. 

The same year that the friars built their stone 
domicile Champlain brought his wife to Quebec. 
He had married her ten years previous when 
she was only twelve so that she was still quite 
youthful. During her four years in Canada, 
if we can believe tradition, she charmed every- 
one with her beauty and gentleness, and the 
Indians wanted to worship her as a divinity. 

Nearly all the scanty population of the 
country consisted of fur-traders and the men in 
their employ. The few emigrants lounged about 
the trading-houses, or roved the woods on 
vagabond hunting excursions. Hostile Indians 
were prowling around, and in the summer of 
1622 the Iroquois made a descent on the settle- 
ment, and assailed the Recollect convent on the 
St. Charles. But while some of the friars prayed 
in the chapel, the rest with their Indian converts 
made a brave defence and the attacking party 
withdrew. 

Political intrigue in the homeland affected 
adversely the fortunes of the colony, and the 
troubles of the various companies that were 
granted trading privileges brought it again and 
again near to ruin. Finally war broke out 



164 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

between France and England. Quebec had 
passed through a hard winter and in the spring 
of 1628 was on the verge of starvation. Four 
armed vessels with a fleet of transports were sent 
to succor Quebec; but about the same time an 
English fleet was dispatched for the St. Lawrence 
on a voyage of conquest. Quebec was incapable 
of defence. Only fifty pounds of gunpowder 
were left, and a fort that had been erected a few 
years before on the clifF, where now is the 
DuflFerin Terrace, was tumbling to ruin. The 
English arrived in the St. Lawrence ahead of the 
French fleet and anchored at Tadousac. Some 
captured Basque fishermen were sent up the 
river with a message demanding that Champlain 
should surrender. His response was that he 
would hold his position to the last. The English 
commander, deceived by the bold attitude of 
Champlain, thought it would not be wise to risk 
attacking the stronghold. He, however, en- 
countered the fleet from France, overpowered it, 
and all the supplies destined to relieve the hun- 
gry tenants of Quebec were either seized or sunk 
in the river. 

The miseries of Quebec increased daily, and 
the four or five score of men, women and children 
cooped up in the fort subsisted on a scanty 




^ 



Quebec's Eventful History 165 

pittance of peas and maize. By the time another 
winter and spring had passed the food stores 
were wholly exhausted, and the members of the 
colony betook themselves to the woods to gather 
acorns and grub up roots. In midsummer three 
English ships arrived before the town, and there 
was nothing for the starved and ragged band of 
French to do but to surrender. 

When France and England made peace it was 
agreed that Canada should be restored to the 
former power, and Champlain crossed the ocean 
once more to the New World and took up his 
harassing round of cares at the dilapidated 
hamlet of Quebec. Ten years later he died on 
Christmas Day, after having worked nearly three 
decades with unceasing ardor for the welfare of 
the colony, sacrificing fortune, repose and 
domestic peace. Shortly after his death fire 
destroyed the church near which he was buried 
and the place of his interment was forgotten. 
But in 1856 some men who were laying water- 
pipes at the foot of Breakneck Stairs discovered 
a mouldering coffin and a few bones in a lofty 
vault. A person of distinction had evidently 
been buried there, and that person is supposed 
to have been Champlain, the "Father of New 
France." 



1 66 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Quebec long continued to lead a precari- 
ous existence and the perils of the wilderness 
still encompassed it in 1658 when the young 
Vicomte d'Argenson crossed the ocean to be- 
come governor of the colony. On the day after 
he arrived at Quebec, while he was washing his 
hands before seating himself to dine in the 
Chateau St. Louis, he was startled by cries of 
alarm. The Iroquois had made a descent on 
an outlying home, and their warwhoops and the 
screams of their victims were distinctly heard. 
Argenson ran out and, with such a following as 
he could muster, hastened to the rescue; but the 
nimble assailants had disappeared in the forests 
which at that time grew close around the town. 

In the years that followed shiploads of emi- 
grants arrived every summer from France and 
Quebec was growing into a place that seemed 
to have a good deal of stability and promise for 
the future. But about ten o'clock one August 
night in 1682, there was an alarm of fire. Shouts 
and the ringing of bells roused the people from 
their slumber, and they ran forth to find the 
flames burning so fiercely in the Lower Town 
that it was as light as noonday. Only kettles 
and buckets were available for throwing water, 
and the crowd was bewildered with excitement 



Quebec's Eventful History 167 

and fright. The buildings were all of wood, and 
those who attempted to combat the fire had 
constantly to retreat from the heat and rapidly 
spreading flames. Toward morning the fire 
burned itself out. Fifty-five buildings had been 
destroyed, many of them storehouses filled with 
goods, so that the property consumed was of 
greater value than all that remained in Canada. 
Before the town had fully recovered from this 
disaster, trouble was again brewing with the 
English. Count Frontenac was now governor 
of New France. He had reached the age of three 
score years and ten, but the grizzled veteran 
was still erect and vigorous, and scarcely less 
keen, fiery and headstrong than he had been in 
his youth. To teach the English that prudence 
was advisable and a policy of conciliation toward 
their Canadian neighbors he sent various war 
parties, largely made up of savages, to lay waste 
their border settlements. This, however, so 
roused the belligerence of the sufferers that a 
naval expedition was organized to go to the St. 
Lawrence. On the sixteenth of October, 1690, a 
fleet of ships, schooners and fishing craft from 
Boston, all thronged with men, glided into the 
Basin of Quebec between the town and the Isle 
of Orleans. Soon a boat left the fleet carrying a 



1 68 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

messenger with a letter from Admiral Phips to 
the French commander. At the shore the 
messenger was blindfolded, and while ostensibly 
being led to the governor, was conducted hither 
and thither and made to clamber over all sorts 
of obstructions. A noisy crowd surrounded him 
in this progress, hustling him and laughing at his 
discomfort. 

Finally he was brought into the Chateau 
St. Louis, the bandages were removed from his 
eyes, and he found himself in a large hall facing 
the stern and haughty Frontenac and his officers 
in glittering uniforms. He delivered his letter, 
which demanded the surrender of all Canada and 
gave one hour for the preparation of an answer. 
Frontenac's reply was an immediate negative. 
When the messenger asked that the answer be 
put in writing Frontenac said: "I will answer 
only by the mouths of my cannon." 

The envoy was then blindfolded and sent back 
as he came. In the days that followed, the ships 
engaged in a tremendous bombardment that 
wasted a great deal of ammunition and did no 
damage worth mentioning. Much was hoped 
from the efforts of a force of thirteen hundred men 
that landed east of the St. Charles, and some des- 
perate fighting ensued. They suffered greatly. 




A byway adjoining the Basil i 



Quebec's Eventful History 169 

One night while they were on shore ice formed 
an inch thick, they were scantily supplied with 
food, many became sick, and at the end of four 
days they were withdrawn. 

Phips now called a council of officers, and it 
was resolved that the men should rest a day or 
two, that there should be a meeting for prayer, 
and then, if there was sufficient ammunition, 
another landing should be attempted. But 
rough weather interfered with the prayer-meet- 
ing, and the disheartened New Englanders 
hauled up their anchors and sailed away. Quebec 
had meanwhile been awaiting its fate with agita- 
tion and alarm. The pinch of famine had begun 
to be felt, and in another week the place would 
have been helpless. Now it breathed freely 
again. 

The English were gone, but their allies, the 
Iroquois, continued to devastate the upper valley, 
and in 1692 Frontenac, in reprisal for their 
barbarities, ordered that two Iroquois prisoners 
who had been brought to Quebec should be 
burned. One stabbed himself in prison. The 
other was tortured to death on Cape Diamond 
by the Christian Hurons, defying them to the last. 
During the next two years the Iroquois suf- 
fered greatly, and at length a deputation was 



170 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

sent to Quebec to treat for peace. Their gar- 
ments bespoke their destitute condition. All 
were dressed in shabby deerskins and old blan- 
kets except their chief orator who wore a scarlet 
coat laced with gold, given him by the governor 
of New York. Frontenac did his best to win 
their friendship. He feasted them at his own 
table and bestowed gifts so liberally that the 
tattered ambassadors went home in embroidered 
coats, laced shirts and plumed hats. But in the 
end the negotiations came to naught. 

In the years of comparative peace and security 
that followed Quebec grew and prospered, but 
still retained much of the character of a frontier 
town. Education was neglected, and when 
early in the eighteenth century a printing press 
was brought to Quebec, it was looked on with 
such disfavor that it was sent back whence it 
came. 

Complaint was made that the young men of 
the place were too much inclined to "run wild 
in the woods for the sake of a few pelts." As for 
the young ladies, here is a description of them 
from the pen of a traveller who was in Quebec 
about 1750: 

"They are attentive to know the newest 
fashions, and laugh at each other when they are 



Quebec's Eventful History 171 

not dressed to each other's fancy. A girl of 
eighteen is reckoned poorly off if she cannot 
enumerate at least twenty lovers. These young 
ladies, especially those of higher rank, get up 
at seven and dress till nine, drinking coffee at 
the same time. Then they place themselves 
near a v^indov^ that opens into the street, take 
up some needle-v^ork, and sew a stitch now and 
then, but turn their eyes toward the street most 
of the time. When a young fellow comes in they 
immediately set aside their work, and begin to 
chat, laugh and joke." 

The person quoted affirms that the maidens 
of Montreal felt "very much displeased because 
those of Quebec get husbands quicker than 
they." 

The greatest episode in Quebec's history is its 
capture by the English in 1759. War had been 
raging for several years, but not until then had 
the heart of the colony been invaded. In or near 
Quebec was an army of sixteen thousand men, 
under the command of Montcalm, an officer of 
great ability who had rendered his country dis- 
tinguished service. He was a man of culture, 
fond of reading and study, and eager to return 
to his rural home in France where he had left 
behind a wife and six children. 



172 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

The French forces had elements of both 
strength and weakness. A large number of 
Indians were included, and though they were 
often a great help in a sudden attack, any pro- 
tracted movement was distasteful to them, and 
it could never be foreseen when they would go 
off in a huff, or the various clans fall to fighting 
among themselves. Montcalm in telling how 
grotesquely they painted and dressed says: 
** You would take them for so many masqueraders 
or devils;" and he adds: "One needs the patience 
of an angel to get on with them.*' 

Another large portion of the army consisted 
of Canadians. As bush-fighters they were mar- 
vellously efficient, and they did well behind earth- 
works; but when it came to a battle in an open 
field, they were disorderly, and were apt to 
break and take to cover at the moment of crisis. 
But Montcalm had no intention of putting them 
to this test. It was his plan to avoid a pitched 
battle and to wear his antagonists out by making 
it impossible for them to get at him. 

The English expedition was in charge of 
General James Wolfe. He was in his thirty- 
third year, a person of unbounded energy and 
courage and ability, but much handicapped by 
11-health. His available force for land opera- 



Quebec's Eventful History 173 

tions was less than nine thousand men. What 
chance had he against the much larger French 
army posted behind defensive works that were 
almost impregnable by nature ? 

On June twenty-sixth the English fleet arrived, 
and anchored off the south shore of the Island of 
Orleans, a few miles from Quebec. A flotilla 
of fireships had been prepared, which it was 
hoped would destroy the English vessels. These 
sailed down the river one dark night on their 
mission; but the nerve of those in charge failed 
them. They set fire to their ships a half hour too 
soon. The vessels were filled with pitch and 
tar and other combustibles, mixed with fire- 
works and bombs, and they carried various old 
cannon and muskets loaded to the throat. Some 
English sentries posted at the Point of Orleans 
were so amazed at the sudden eruption and the 
din of the explosions, and the flying missiles, 
that they lost their wits and fled. Gloomy 
volumes of smoke rolled upward, and the sheets 
of fire illumined the clouds and shed an infernal 
glare over the water and the shore and even 
the distant city. But the fireships did no harm 
except to burn alive one of their own captains 
and six or seven of his sailors. 



174 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Wolfe seized Point Levi opposite Quebec, 
threw up intrenchments, and soon was dropping 
bombs and balls into the town. In a single day 
eighteen houses and the cathedral were burned 
by exploding shells. But to lay Quebec in ruins 
was little gain if its defending army was unde- 
feated. Only a few of the French were needed 
to protect the almost inaccessible heights that 
fronted the river from Quebec westward, and 
the army for the most part was posted along the 
Beauport waterside from the St. Charles to the 
Montmorency, a distance of seven or eight 
miles. They had thought it impossible for any 
hostile ship to pass the batteries of the city; 
but one night, with a favoring wind, several of 
the English vessels sailed to the upper river 
without suflFering serious injury. Other ships 
and transports ran the gauntlet later, and a fleet 
of flatboats followed. 

The French were by this time on short rations, 
and the operations of the enemy above the town 
made them fearful that their supplies might be 
cut off. These came from the districts up the 
river, sometimes in boats at night, sometimes 
by land, and always with a good deal of hazard. 

It became more and more difficult to maintain 
discipline among the troops, disorder and pillage 



Quebec's Eventful History 175 

were rife, and the Canadians deserted so fast 
that toward the end of August it is said that two 
hundred of them would sometimes go off in a 
single night. 

Wolfe continued to be haunted by illness, and 
at one time was wholly incapacitated for a week. 
His only fear was that he might not be able to 
lead his troops in person when he had perfected 
arrangements for a desperate attempt to dis- 
lodge the foe. He told his physician that he 
knew perfectly well he could not be cured, but 
begged that he might be put in shape to do his 
duty for a few days without pain. 

While examining the river shore above the 
town he observed a path, about a mile from 
Cape Diamond, that ran with a long slope up 
the face of the brushy precipice, and he saw at 
the top a cluster of tents. These belonged to a 
guard of a hundred men stationed there to watch 
the Anse du Foulon, now called Wolfe's Cove. 
Here it was decided to attempt a landing. On 
September twelfth everything was ready. The 
main fleet in the Basin of Quebec ranged itself 
along the Beauport shore, and that night boats 
were lowered full of men while ship signalled to 
ship, cannon flashed and thundered, and shot 
ploughed the beach as if to clear a way for 



176 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

assailants to land. Montcalm thought an 
attack here was imminent, and he massed his 
troops to repel it. 

The real danger was ten miles up the river. 
Thirty large bateaux besides smaller boats lay 
alongside the vessels there, and seventeen hun- 
dred men had made ready to embark in them. 
About two o'clock the tide began to ebb, and 
the boats cast off and floated away with the 
current. The stars were visible, but the night 
was moonless. General Wolfe was in one of 
the foremost boats. As they drifted along he 
repeated in a low voice to the officers about him 
Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." 
"Gentlemen," said he in closing, "I would 
rather have written those lines than take 
Quebec." 

When they neared their destination a sentry 
challenged them; but an officer who spoke 
French fluently responded and allayed the 
sentry's suspicions. The man on shore con- 
cluded the procession of boats was a convoy of 
provisions Montcalm's army expected down the 
river that night. 

Just below the cove, the troops disembarked 
on a narrow strand at the foot of the steep 
heights. Near by was a rough ravine choked 




I 
Q 

■^ 

•^ 

o 




Quebec's Eventful History 177 

with forest trees, and in its depths ran a little 
brook, which, swollen by recent rains, could be 
heard splashing down its rocky course. As soon 
as the advance parties of English had scaled the 
heights they saw a cluster of tents at a short 
distance and immediately made a dash at them. 
The guard detailed for this place was largely 
made up of Canadians, and the commandant 
had allowed many of them to go home for a 
time to work at their harvesting. Nor was he 
keeping a strict watch with those he had left, 
and he himself had gone to bed. So there was 
little resistance. Some were captured and the 
rest ran away. 

The loud huzzas of the victors announced to 
their waiting comrades below the result of the 
action. At once the entire body of troops began 
to scramble up the steep ascent, clutching at 
trees and bushes, their muskets slung at their 
backs. The narrow, slanting path on the face 
of the precipice had been made impassable by 
trenches and abattis; but all obstructions were 
soon cleared away. Meanwhile some of the 
boats had returned to the vessels for more men, 
and others had crossed the river to get troops 
that were waiting on the south shore. 



178 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

When day broke, Wolfe had thirty-five hun- 
dred men drawn up along the crest of the heights. 
They were on the Plains of Abraham, so called 
from Abraham Martin, a St. Lawrence River 
pilot who had owned the land in early times. 
It was a rather monotonous grassy plateau with 
here and there a patch of corn and clumps of 
bushes, and it stretched without fence or inclos- 
ure up to the walls of the town. 

Montcalm at Beauport had passed a sleepless 
night listening to the bellowing of the cannon 
of the fleet along his front and watching the 
boats that hovered off shore. Not until after 
six o'clock the next morning was he aware of 
how the English had outwitted him. In hot 
haste he rode to the city, and his army was 
ordered to follow. Wolfe was now in a position 
to cut off his supplies, and there was no choice 
but to fight. By ten o'clock Montcalm had 
mustered a force equal to that of the English. 
It formed in three bodies and made an impetuous 
charge, the men uttering loud shouts and firing 
as they advanced. When they were within 
forty paces there burst from the English line a 
crash of musketry. Another volley followed, 
and then a few moments of furious clattering 
fire. As soon as the smoke rose the ground was 



Quebec's Eventful History 179 

seen to be cumbered with dead and wounded, and 
the French paused, frantically shouting, cursing 
and gesticulating. The English were now 
ordered to charge, and with cheers and yells 
they dashed forward. Only at their right was 
there any serious resistance. This came from 
some sharpshooters concealed in the bushes and 
cornfields. Wolfe himself led the charge here. 
A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his 
handkerchief about it and kept on. Another 
shot struck him, but he still advanced, till a 
third bullet lodged in his breast. Then he 
staggered and sat down. Some of his men ran 
to his aid and carried him to the rear where 
they laid him on the ground. One of them 
looking back, exclaimed: "They run! See how 
they run!" 

"Who run r Wolfe demanded. 

"The enemy, sir," was the reply. "They 
give away everywhere." 

"Now God be praised. I will die in peace!" 
murmured Wolfe, and in a few moments his 
gallant soul had departed. 

Montcalm, still on horseback, was borne along 
with the tide of fugitives toward the town. As 
he approached the walls a shot passed through 
his body. Two soldiers supported him, one on 



i8o The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

each side, and led his horse through the St. 
Louis Gate, He was carried into a house and 
a surgeon examined his wound and pronounced 
it mortal. Montcalm quietly asked how long 
he had to live. 

"Probably not more than twelve hours," was 
the reply. 

"So much the better," commented the dying 
general. "I am happy that I shall not live to 
see the surrender of Quebec." 

He passed away peacefully late that night. 
In the confusion of the time no workman could 
be found to make a coffin, but an old servant of 
the Ursuline Convent nailed together a few 
boards to form a rough box. In it was laid the 
body of the dead soldier, and the evening of the 
same day he was carried to his rest. The officers 
of the garrison followed the bier and some of the 
populace, including women and children, joined 
the procession as it moved in dreary silence 
along the dusky street, shattered with cannon- 
ball and bomb. A shell bursting under the floor 
in the chapel of the Ursuline Convent had made 
a cavity which had been hollowed into a grave, 
and here by the light of torches was buried the 
heroic Montcalm. 




Wolfe's Cove 



Quebec's Eventful History i8r 

The victors had fortified themselves on the 
battlefield. They were still greatly outnumbered 
by the French, and their victory was far from 
complete. But the enemy was so disconcerted 
by what had happened that the army was ordered 
to begin an immediate retreat. Quebec with its 
little garrison was abandoned to its fate. The 
cannon remained in the Beauport intrench- 
ments, the tents were left standing, and the 
panic-stricken troops neither carried away nor 
destroyed the supplies of food in the storehouses. 
Utter confusion reigned in the fortress, and the 
militia refused to fight. The commandant put 
on a bold front for a few days, and when this 
would serve no longer he surrendered. 

Late in October the English admiral fired a 
parting salute and sailed down the river carrying 
a portion of the troops and the embalmed body 
of General Wolfe. Ten battalions with artillery 
and a company of rangers remained to hold the 
ruins of Quebec. They repaired the defences 
and busied themselves in getting ready for 
winter. It was not easy to find comfortable 
quarters. In the lower town little was left save 
scorched and crumbling walls; and the upper 
town had also suffered much. Murray, the 
general in command, was a gallant soldier, 



1 82 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

upright, humane and daring. He issued strict 
orders against harming the Canadians in person 
or property, and he hanged a soldier who robbed 
a citizen. As a rule the soldiers themselves were 
as friendly to the conquered people as anyone 
could ask. During harvest they helped the 
French to reap their fields and shared with them 
their tobacco and rations. 

Winter came with its fierce storms and cold. 
The supply of fuel constantly fell short, and the 
cutting of wood and getting it to the town was the 
chief task of the garrison. Parties of axemen, 
strongly guarded, were always at work in the 
forest of Sainte Foy, four or five miles distant, 
and thence the logs were dragged on sledges 
by the soldiers. Eight of them were harnessed 
in pairs to each sledge; and as there was danger 
from Indians and bush-rangers each man 
carried a musket slung on his back. The garri- 
son was afflicted with scurvy and other diseases, 
and by spring scarcely more than half of them 
were fit for duty. About seven hundred had been 
temporarily buried in the snowdrifts. Toward 
the end of April a French expedition from 
Montreal eight or nine thousand strong drew 
near the town intent on its recapture. Murray 
went out to meet it. Snow still lingered nearly 



Quebec's Eventful History 183 

everywhere, sodden with rain, and turned to 
slush in the hollows. On the plateau near the 
Anse du Foulon the two armies encountered. 
At first the English gained some slight advantage, 
but at the end of a two hours' fight they had 
lost a thousand men and were driven back to 
the city. They were even obliged to leave behind 
some of their wounded, most of whom were 
scalped and mangled by the mission Indians. 
Now the fate of Quebec was again trembling in 
the balance, and the troops in the fortress, 
officers and men alike, labored with barrow, pick 
and spade to strengthen the defences. But on 
the ninth of May a British frigate arrived before 
the lower town and saluted the garrison. Such 
was the relief and joy of the troops that they 
mounted the parapet in the face of the enemy 
and huzzaed and waved their hats for almost an 
hour, while the gunners made the country round 
reverberate with the discharge of their cannon. 
Other ships arrived a week later, and two of the 
English vessels passed the town to attack the 
French vessels in the river above. The latter 
were all captured or destroyed, and as these 
contained the army's stores of food and ammu- 
nition, the besieging forces were obliged to 
withdraw. 



184 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

Quebec's next taste of war came in the 
American Revolution. The rebeUing colonies, 
early in the contest, aspired to the conquest of 
Canada, and in August, 1775, an expedition was 
started down Lake Champlain under the com- 
mand of Richard Montgomery. On the twelfth 
of November he was in possession of Montreal 
and there issued a proclamation urging the 
Canadians to join hands with the colonies in 
the war. 

Meanwhile Benedict Arnold with over a 
thousand men was making his way through 
the forests of Maine toward Quebec. He and 
his followers went in boats up the Kennebec. In 
order to reach the Chaudiere which flows into 
the St. Lawrence they had to carry boats, oars 
and baggage on their shoulders a long distance 
through the tangled undergrowth of the primeval 
woods. Before the end of the portage their 
shoes were worn out, their clothes in tatters and 
their food gone. Some small game was shot and 
they devoured their dogs. When they reached 
the Chaudiere, after a terrible march of thirty- 
three days, many of their number had suc- 
cumbed to starvation, cold and fatigue, while 
two hundred more had turned back carry- 
ing with them the sick and disabled. The 



Quebec's Eventful History 185 

descent of the Chaudiere afforded some respite, 
and they presently began to find cattle for 
food. 

They arrived at the mouth of the river a little 
above Quebec, about the middle of November, 
crossed the broad St. Lawrence and climbed to 
the Plains of Abraham by the same ravine that 
Wolfe had climbed to victory. The little, worn- 
out army, now reduced to seven hundred men, 
summoned the garrison of the town to surrender, 
or come out and fight; but the garrison would 
do neither. So Arnold waited for Montgomery 
to come from Montreal. He arrived about three 
weeks later and it was agreed to attack the 
defences. On the last day of the year at two 
o'clock in the morning, in a blinding snowstorm, 
Montgomery and Arnold each began a furious 
attack on opposite sides of the town. Their 
assault was a surprise; but Montgomery in the 
narrow pass at the base of Cape Diamond, 
fighting his way into the Lower Town, fell dead, 
pierced by three bullets; and his men, confused 
by this mishap, hesitated until the enemy was 
reinforced and drove them back. Arnold was 
almost equally unfortunate. He was severely 
wounded and carried from the field; and though 
some of his men fought their way far into the 



1 86 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

town this gallant invading party was finally 
surrounded and captured. 

Arnold with the rest of the troops remained in 
the neighborhood of the city until spring when 
he was reinforced and renewed the struggle. 
But assistance had arrived also for the English, 
so the Americans were compelled to fall back. 
Montreal was retaken, and the remnant of the 
invading army, after a hazardous retreat, reached 
Crown Point. 

The defeat of Montgomery and Arnold was 
celebrated in Quebec on the anniversary of the 
fight for twenty-five years afterward by ban- 
quettings, dances, military reviews and religious 
services. An officer present at the thanksgiving 
ceremonies conducted by the bishop in the 
cathedral on the first anniversary records that: 
"Eight unfortunate Canadians who had sided 
with the rebels were present with ropes about 
their necks, and were forced to do penance 
before all in the church, and crave pardon of 
their God, Church and King." 



X 

THE QUEBEC OF THE PRESENT 

OUEBEC is the quaintest of all American 
cities. It is superbly situated on the end 
of a high, narrow ridge that rises between the 
St. Lawrence and the river St. Charles, which 
flows into the greater stream a little to the east 
of the bluff. The boldness of its site, its romantic 
history, and its Old World appearance combine 
to give it a very exceptional charm. A walled 
fortification with gates surrounds its more ancient 
portion, and this part of the town with its narrow 
thoroughfares and frowning battlements is like 
a fragment of medieval Europe, pervaded by 
the atmosphere of departed centuries. 

The magnificence of the town's position with 
the noble river flowing at its base cannot help* 
impressing all beholders. Especially noteworthy 
in the landscape are the long dark lines of the 
world-famed citadel at the summit of the cliff. 
You can travel a score of miles up or down the 
St. Lawrence, or ramble nearly as far amid the 
hills on either side, and a chance look backward 



i88 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

still reveals the fortifications looming against 
the sky. 

I arrived at Quebec in the evening. The 
railv^ay station w^as behind the clifF away from 
the river, and v^hen I presently started out to 
explore I at once began climbing. Hov7 steep 
the streets were, and how crooked ! The chimes 
were ringing in one of the big churches as I 
wended through the irregular ways, and I felt 
as if I was in London or Edinburgh. I kept on 
mounting higher and higher till at last I came 
to a vast gloomy height crowned by masses of 
stonework that I recognized as military buildings 
and fortifications. Then I turned aside and 
went down to a less ambitious elevation and at 
length found myself on DufFerin Terrace, over- 
looking the old town at the foot of the cliff and 
the dark river beyond. 

I was delighted with Quebec that night, and 
I was no less pleased with it by daylight. How 
strange that there should be such a place in 
the midst of our American landscape! The 
air and sky, and the appearance of the trees and 
the country roundabout were familiar enough; 
but the buildings and the streets and the lan- 
guage were foreign. As a matter of fact nine 
tenths of the people are French and Roman 



The Quebec of the Present 189 

Catholics, and many of the humbler class can 
neither speak nor understand English. 

A favorite method of seeing the city is to drive 
about in a caleche — a crazy-looking two-wheeled 
vehicle, but with an antique individuality that 
makes it popular with tourists. Indeed, it is 
only their patronage that keeps it from becoming 
obsolete. The wheels are very large and heavy, 
and the body, which is suspended between them 
on broad leather straps, has a peculiar but gentle 
motion. Under the hood of the caleche is a 
seat with room for two persons, and in front is 
the narrow seat of the driver. It is certainly 
a somewhat awkward contrivance, and one 
citizen remarked to me that the man who in- 
vented it ought to have been hung; yet it lifts 
you above the height of ordinary carriages, and 
this. at least is an advantage for sightseeing. 

The portion of the city that skirts the base of 
the cliff is known as the Lower Town, while that 
on the height is called the Upper Town. Narrow 
as is the space where the ancient Lower Town 
stands between the beetling crag and the St. 
Lawrence, it was formerly much narrower; for 
a considerable portion of its present width has 
been reclaimed from the river. To the westward 
it soon becomes more attenuated, and there is 



I go The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

room for only a single street that skirts around 
the foot of Cape Diamond, hugging the cliff as 
if for safety. 

Cape Diamond, whose precipitous uplift is 
crowned with the citadel, takes its name from 
the numerous sparkling quartz crystals found 
embedded in its rock. This massive, defiant, 
outjutting crag could not fail to greatly impress 
the early explorers. ''Que bee!" (What a beak) 
one of Cartier's followers is said to have ex- 
claimed as the first expedition up the river 
approached the cliff; and thus, according to 
this tradition, was the height and the future city 
named. 

Some students, however, think the name was 
derived from an Indian word meaning "the 
narrows " — a reference to the river, which is here 
contracted to much less than its usual width. 
The cliff had a wilderness setting then, where 
now we see clustering roofs, ramparts, fortified 
walls, pointed spires and ominous muzzles of 
cannon. But the face of the rock, with its rugged 
grimness somewhat softened by scattered shrub- 
bery, presented much the same appearance it 
does today. 

In the heart of the Lower Town is the Cham- 
plain Market Hall, a big gray stone building 



The Quebec of the Present 191 

fronting an open square where the wives of the 
French Canadian farmers gather with their 
wares on market days. There they sit or stand, 
selling the produce of their gardens and dairies, 
which they have brought in the boxes and bags 
by which they are surrounded. A fleet of small 
steamers lying five or six abreast at the market 
wharf has served the country women and their 
produce as a conveyance from their riverside 
homes. 

While I stood watching the scene one day my 
attention was attracted by a woman who went 
from one display of produce to another critically 
examining what was shown and haggling for 
lower prices. A townsman standing near me 
was observing her also, and he said: "They will 
not make much out of her. She is a Jewess. 
Many Jews have come to Quebec in recent years, 
and they are getting to control more and more of 
the business. A man will reach here in rags, but 
pretty soon he will have a little stock of things 
to sell which he carries around in handbags from 
door to door. In five years you will find he has 
a shop in the town." 

Just as he finished this explanation a man 
came along in a great hurry and asked the way 
to the wharf of a certain steamboat line. My 



192 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

companion replied, and the man bustled away. 
**That was a blasted Englishman," said my 
acquaintance. " I have to be around the wharves 
a good deal of the time, and strangers are forever 
asking me questions. Some of the questions are 
downright foolish. Why, the other day a fellow 
asked me if I spoke United States. *What the 
dickens kind of a language is that ?* I said." 

Of all the many narrow streets of old Quebec 
the queerest is Sous le Cap. It skirts the 
easterly base of the cliff, winding about the 
irregularities and having some added angles of 
its own. So narrow is it that in most parts two 
carts could not pass each other. Clotheslines 
extend across overhead, and it is spanned by 
many closed-in passages that reach from one 
upper story to that opposite, and dark little 
alleys connect it with the next street below. As 
a final touch the children of the street follow the 
stranger begging for pennies. 

The only roadway leading to the Upper Town, 
unless you go a considerable distance back from 
the St. Lawrence, is Cote de la Montague or 
Mountain Street, and this has not been passable 
for carriages until comparatively recent years. 
It is a stiff climb up its winding way, but this is 
easier than to go up by the still steeper stairways. 




The Champlain Monument 



The Quebec of the Present 193 

The most notable of the latter form of thorough- 
fare is what is known as the Breakneck Stairs 
close by the Dufferin Terrace. This has one 
hundred and sixty-four steps. The flight of 
stairs is fairly wide and is divided by a number 
of iron railings for hand supports. These 
railings also serve as a means of descent for the 
boys, who sit on them sideways and go down 
with astonishing velocity. Such use has given 
the iron a polished smoothness that is quite 
noticeable. 

A short walk from the upper end of the stairs 
brings one to Dufferin Terrace, Quebec's famous 
promenade. This is half way up the northern 
slope of the bluff, nearly two hundred feet above 
the river which it fronts. It is a planked plat- 
form about a quarter of a mile long, and the 
roofs and wharves of the old town under the 
cliff are immediately below. 

A disastrous landslide occurred from the face 
of the rock that supports its southern end in 1889. 
There had been a good deal of rainy weather, 
and the water evidently worked its way deep 
into a fault in the rock. Thus a great mass was 
loosened, and between eight and nine o'clock 
one September evening it slid down and crashed 
into a line of tenement houses on the other side 



194 The Picturesque St, Lawrence 

of the road at the foot of the cHfF. Most of the 
inmates were hurled into eternity without a 
moment's notice. The rocks and earth have 
never been entirely cleared away, and the road 
here is several feet higher than its natural level. 
Some of the adjoining homes still stand partially 
wrecked and the rocks that collided with their 
walls lie just where they stopped. A portion of 
the masonry of the fortress came down in the 
slide. The break has been mended, but there is 
some fear that the adjacent end of DufFerin 
Terrace may slough off, and the public is barred 
from venturing on the doubtful portion. 

Back of the Terrace, in the governor's garden, 
is a twin-faced monument in honor of the 
illustrious contending generals, Wolfe and Mont- 
calm, who both won immortal fame and met 
death at nearly the same time. The monument 
is said to be "strictly classical" in all its pro- 
portions, and therefore, I suppose, ought to be 
admired as a thing of beauty; but, be that as it 
may, it is certainly noteworthy from the unusual 
fact of its being erected to honor both the victor 
and the vanquished. 

Not far distant from this spot is the post- 
office, a massive stone building that has above 
its entrance the rudely carved gilded image of 



The Quebec of the Present 195 

a dog gnawing a bone. You wonder what can 
be the significance of this curious tablet. Ac- 
cording to a long-cherished tradition, Philibert, 
the proprietor of the old house that formerly 
stood on this site had some quarrel with an 
officer named Legardeur, and placed the tablet 
in the front wall of his dwelling accompanied 
by four menacing lines which may be translated 
thus : 

I am a dog gnawing a bone. 
While I gnaw I take my repose. 
The time will come, though not yet. 
When I will bite him who bites me. 

Some declare that Philibert was assassinated 
by Legardeur, and that Philibert*s brother pur- 
sued the assassin to Europe, and later to the 
East Indies where he slew him. 

On the upland are many notable buildings, 
among which should be mentioned the Arch- 
bishop's Palace and the Basilica. The latter is 
the city's largest church. It may be said to have 
been begun in 1645 when the governor and the 
inhabitants of the city appropriated twelve 
hundred and fifty beaver skins toward the cost 
of its construction. The building was ready 
for partial use five years later, but was not 



196 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

definitely opened until 1657. Since then it has 
never closed its doors except for the making of 
repairs after the siege of 1759. It suffered much 
in the several w^ars, but the foundations and 
parts of the walls are the same as at first. The 
rarest pictures in the city hang in the Basilica, 
and include various canvases from some of 
Europe's most famous masters. In the Semi- 
nary Chapel adjoining the Basilica are a number 
of supposed relics of Christ — portions of the cross, 
and of the crov^^n of thorns and seamless robe. 

Both the Basilica and the Chapel face on the 
old market-place, where, in by-gone times the 
rustic housewives used to sit in their carts or 
sleighs on market days peddling out their farm 
produce to the townspeople. What varied scenes 
this old square has witnessed — tragic, gay, 
martial and religious! Here formerly stood the 
pillory used for the punishment of thieves and 
perjurers; and many a victim did penance in it. 

The older part of the city on the height is still 
a walled town. Under French dominion five 
gates pierced the fortifications, and the English 
added two more; but these have all been re- 
moved, and the two modern substitutes appear 
altogether too trim and youthful to have any 
sentiment about them. 




Sous le Cap Street 



The Quebec of the Present 197 

A short walk west of the St. Louis Gate is a 
height of land, now known as Perreault's Hill, 
which up to the end of the eighteenth century 
was the general place of execution in Quebec. 
One romantic story connected with it relates 
how a certain French soldier here cheated the 
gallows, shortly before the British conquest. 
The crime for which he had been condemned 
was the murder of a comrade who had been 
known in Quebec as a very bad character. The 
previous good conduct of the murderer and the 
circumstances that led to his deed won him the 
sympathy of the community, and a number of 
his friends, including his Father Confessor, 
plotted to save his life. On the way to the place 
of execution this priest exhibited a tender 
affection for the condemned man, embracing 
him warmly, with his arms about the criminal's 
neck. In one hand, however, he had a small 
bottle of nitric acid with which he carefully 
soaked the cord that had been put in position 
ready to serv^e as the instrument of the prisoner's 
death. They arrived at the gallows and the 
fateful moment came when the murderer was to 
drop to his death. But the corroded rope gave 
way, and the man's friends who had crowded 
around the scaffold quickly opened a passage for 



198 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

his escape. As soon as he had run through 
they promptly closed up their ranks to prevent 
the soldiers from following him. The ruse was 
successful; for the fugitive, after hiding a few 
days in a cooper's shop of the Lower Town, 
made good his escape to France, the cooper 
having put him on board a departing vessel in 
a barrel. 

Quebec's important place in history has 
rested primarily on the fact that here was one 
of the most impregnable positions of defence 
in the world. Of all the strongholds in British 
territory this is only excelled by Gibraltar. The 
citadel, which faces the St. Lawrence on the 
highest part of the bluff, three hundred and 
forty feet above the river, covers an enclosed 
area of forty acres and was built from plans 
approved by the Duke of Wellington. The 
main approach to it is up the steep hill from the 
St. Louis Gate through a labyrinth of high walls 
and earthworks that are loopholed for musketry, 
and pierced with openings where gleam the 
mouths of cannon. 

When the French erected their wooden forti- 
fications on the height, so much money disap- 
peared in the process, not a little of it absorbed 
by graft, that Louis XIV is reported to have 



The Quebec of the Present 199 

asked whether the defences of Quebec were 
built of gold. The present citadel dates back 
to 1823, at which time the sum of twenty-five 
million dollars was expended on it. Its con- 
struction is very massive, and many of the build- 
ings are considered bomb-proof. Underground 
passages are alleged to communicate with cer- 
tain localities outside of the fortress, but knowl- 
edge of these is not for general diffusion. 

Visitors are halted beneath the arch of the 
entrance by an armed guard, and a soldier is 
detailed to show them around. The outer 
buildings are half buried in the earth, and the 
green turf overgrows the roofs. It seemed as if 
a foe would have small chance of seriously dam- 
aging them, and the entire aspect of the place is 
satisfactorily grim and stout. Of especial inter- 
est to visitors from the States is a little bronze 
cannon captured at Bunker Hill. "You've got 
the cannon, but we've got the hill," remarked 
one Yankee to his guide. 

"Yes," responded the guide, "but if the hill 
had been on wheels as the cannon was, we'd 
have carried that off too." 

The garrison is Canadian and numbers three 
hundred and sixty-five, a man for every day in 
the year apparently, and I suppose an extra 



200 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

one is added on leap years. They are not called 
on to do much strenuous work, and are free to 
use their time as they please a considerable por- 
tion of each day. There is no anxiety on their 
part as to where their food and clothes are to 
come from, and the worst evil that is likely to 
befall a man is a temporary lodgment behind 
the bars of the citadel jail for drunkenness. 

From an angle of the outer ramparts known 
as the King's Bastion one gets the most imposing 
view of the river that Quebec affords. The 
downlook from amid the cannon onto the town 
and the great river and the broad landscape be- 
yond is truly magnificent. 

At the foot of the lofty cliff a narrow road 
winds along westward in and out of the irregu- 
larities with an almost continuous line of quaint 
old houses on either side. The dwellings are apt 
to be decrepit and shabby, yet they are nearly 
all occupied. Ancient rotting wharves reach out 
into the river, and both these and the buildings 
are suggestive of a prosperous and lively past. 
This road furnishes one of the most picturesque 
rides or walks in the Quebec vicinity, and at 
the end of about a mile it takes you to Wolfe's 
Cove. By then the houses have ceased, and here 
is a slight inreach of the river, and a heavily 




Quebec — J Caleche 



The Quebec of the Present 201 

wooded glen makes a break in the giant wall of 
the bluff. It is a steep, hard climb to the upland, 
even with the carefully graded road to make 
the way easier. At the top you come forth on the 
Plains of Abraham, now mostly laid out in 
streets, and having numerous trees and many 
suburban homes to intercept the view. Half 
way back to the town is a monument marking 
the spot where "Wolfe died victorious." This 
is on the verge of a public park — a large dreary 
common which has much the character of the 
original Plains as they were when the battle 
was fought. From there you can look off on the 
dreamy river with its bordering towns and boats 
coming and going; and on its far side, some- 
what up the stream, you can see the ruins of the 
monster Quebec Railway Bridge. 

This was to span the St. Lawrence at a height 
of one hundred and fifty feet above the water. 
Toward the end of August, 1907, a long arm of 
it reaching out from the south shore went down. 
Signs of weakness had been observed some time 
previous, and many of the workmen had refused 
to go out on it. The catastrophe occurred 
within a few minutes of five o'clock, at which 
hour work would have ceased for the day. The 



202 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

noise of the fall was like thunder and was heard 
for miles. Over seventy men were hurled to 
death, and only two of those who went down 
survived. Those who perished were mostly 
from the States and were reputed to be the finest 
workmen in the world, whose places could not 
be filled. "I didn't care a hang about the 
bridge," one of my informants remarked — 
"that could have gone and welcome if it hadn't 
carried the men to destruction, too." 

One of the historic suburbs of Quebec is Cap 
Rouge, about ten miles west. I went thither by 
a stage that left the post office late one summer 
afternoon. The vehicle was a rude sort of an 
omnibus with a long seat extending lengthwise 
on either side. Both seats were filled with 
women passengers who carried numerous baskets 
and bundles and I sat in front with the driver 
amid a heap of mailbags. The load was a heavy 
one for the two horses, and the driver kept 
uneasily urging them forward, jerking his reins, 
chirruping or speaking to them, and now and 
then mildly flicking them with his whip. We 
paused at intervals to let off or take on passen- 
gers, deliver mail, and once to pay at a toll gate. 
The road was hard and well-graded, and it was 



The Quebec of the Present 203 

pleasantly lined by trees and shrubbery. All 
the way we were on the upland until we ap- 
proached Cap Rouge, which is a little place in 
a glen that opens out on the St. Lawrence. Here 
we made a steep descent of a long hill, and 
midway a polestrap broke and let the heavy 
wagon run onto the heels of the horses. There 
was panic among the women passengers, and 
though the driver quickly brought his vehicle to 
a stop by applying the brake, they all piled out 
at the rear and walked the rest of the way. 
Cap Rouge proved to be a delightful little nook, 
as secluded and peaceful as one could wish; but 
a good deal marred by a gigantic railroad trestle 
that strides across the valley. 

On the beach at St. Augustin, a few miles 
farther up the river is a deserted church, built 
in 1648, that the devil in the shape of a horse is 
said to have assisted in constructing. This 
horse was employed in carting immense stones 
that were beyond the power of an ordinary horse 
to move. Those in charge of it were careful 
never to take off its bridle, as it was understood 
that in the bridle was the magic power which kept 
the horse to its task. At last, however, a work- 
man who was watering the horse thoughtlessly 



204 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

removed the bridle to allow the creature to drink 
better. Immediately the beast disappeared in 
a cloud of burning sulphur. 

Nowhere in the St. Lawrence Valley is there 
a region so rich in legend as this in the neighbor- 
hood of Quebec, and not a little of its charm is 
due to these quaint stories that have come down 
from the shadowy past. 



XI 

FROM CAPE DIAMOND TO THE GULF 

JUST below Quebec is the great Isle of 
Orleans, originally christened by Gartier the 
"Isle of Bacchus" on account of the great pro- 
fusion of vines and grapes there. It was also 
for a long time commonly known as "Wizards* 
Isle," in the belief that the Indians who in- 
habited it were in such close touch with nature 
they could predict with certainty the coming of 
a storm or a high tide. Some persons claimed 
that at night phantom lights played over the 
island shores and near waters. The white in- 
habitants were much alarmed by this report 
until it was found that the "spirit lights" were 
torches in the hands of dusky fishermen. Un- 
canny stories long continued to be told, but now 
the peaceful and attractive isle with its villages 
and farms is quite free from all suggestion of 
supernatural visitants. 

On the mainland opposite the west end of the 
island are the far-famed Falls of Montmorency. 
They are in plain sight from the St. Lawrence, 



2o6 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

set back in a rounded niche of the high northern 
shore. The Falls are nearly a hundred feet 
higher than those of Niagara, but the less 
emphasis the visitor puts on this fact the better; 
for the tendency is not to think of the actual 
beauty of the Falls, but to compare them dis- 
paragingly with the tremendous volume of 
Niagara and doubt if they are really as high as 
is claimed. One does not get near enough 
below to correctly take in the immensity of the 
leap made by the stream, which for the whole 
two hundred and fifty feet of its perpendicular 
fall is broken into white and fleecy foam on the 
face of the rock. Then it spreads itself in broad 
thin sheets over a floor of stones and gravel, 
and slips tamely away to the St. Lawrence. 

There was formerly a suspension bridge over 
the river at the very brink of the Falls; but some 
fifty or more years ago it broke away from its 
moorings and was swept over the cataract, 
carrying with it an unfortunate farmer and his 
family who were driving across. The bodies 
were never recovered, for all objects passing 
over the Falls disappear in a subterranean 
cavity worn by the constant pounding of the 
water. The stone piers of the bridge still 
remain. 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 207 

By no means all the flow of the river is allowed 
to go over the wild, wooded cliff simply to 
furnish a spectacle for sightseers. There is a 
dam at the crest and enough of the water is 
deflected to furnish power for lighting the city 
of Quebec. 

An electric railway makes the Falls easily 
accessible, and it continues many miles farther 
down the shore. The outlook from the car 
windows gives an excellent opportunity for 
observing to advantage the farms characteristic 
of the St. Lawrence waterside. These were 
originally of considerable breadth, but large 
families necessitated subdivision when the land 
was handed down from generation to generation, 
and as every proprietor desired a frontage on 
the river, the strips have become marvellously 
narrow. 

On these farms can be seen the typical 
Canadian country dwelling. It is a low modest 
structure with a roof that ends at the eaves in 
a sudden outward curve, like that of a Chinese 
pagoda. Such roofs are not, however, confined 
to the country, for costly brick or stone houses 
in the towns often have the same peculiarity. 
One cannot help fancying that the reason of it 
may be in the climate and that the curve was 



2o8 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

originated to shoot the sliding snow farther 
away from the dwelling. The projection is an 
efficient protection to doors and windows with- 
out interfering seriously with the light, and in 
many cases it covers a veranda. 

Twenty miles from Quebec on this north shore 
we arrive at St. Anne de Beaupre where over 
one hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims resort 
annually to pay their devotions at this shrine 
of world-wide fame. The shrine is the chief 
support of the railway, which has been solemnly 
consecrated and blessed by the cardinal, as have 
even the cars in which the pilgrims travel. 

The village is rather a garish looking place 
with its big church and its chapels and other 
buildings of a religious nature, its huddle of 
hotels and souvenir shops. It has a striking 
setting in the landscape ; for immediately behind 
is an abrupt and lofty hill, and to the east is a 
succession of wild mountain promontories reach- 
ing out into the river. But the river shore oppo- 
site the town is a gently inclined beach, reed- 
grown in its higher portion, and muddy and 
stone-strewn where the tide exposes it beyond. 

St. Anne, in whose honor the great church 
just back from the waterside was built, was the 
mother of the Virgin Mary. When she died 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 209 

she was buried in Jerusalem. Later the infidels 
overran the Holy Land pillaging and destroying, 
and they dragged the coffin of St. Anne forth 
from its tomb, but could neither open nor burn 
it. So they threw it into the sea, and it floated 
away to the town of Apt in France on the shore 
of the Mediterranean. There it lay for a long 
time buried in the sand. One day some fisher- 
men of Apt caught in their net an enormous 
fish. They dragged it to the land, and before 
they succeeded in killing it, the fish in its 
struggling made a deep hole in the sand and 
laid bare the coffin of St. Anne. The fishermen 
tried to open the coffin, but did not succeed any 
better than had the infidels in the Holy Land. 
They informed the bishop, Aurelius, of this 
strange phenomenon, and he had the coffin 
walled into a crypt of the church. In the course 
of time St. Anne became the patroness of Brit- 
tany, and presently it began to be rumored that 
at Auray where a shrine had been dedicated to 
her she performed miraculous cures for those 
who trusted her. 

A few years after the founding of Quebec a 
crew of Briton sailors, voyaging to the new world, 
were buffeted by a terrible tempest and vowed 
they would build a shrine in honor of St. Anne, 



210 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

if she guided them safely through the storm. 
They survived the gale, and when they landed 
on the shore of the St. Lawrence at the spot 
where now stands the beautiful Basilica they 
erected a little wooden chapel in fulfillment of 
their promise. At the time this primitive edifice 
was rebuilt in 1660, one of the villagers of 
Beaupre who desired to help in the work was 
a man suffering much bodily pain. He thought 
he would have the strength to show his devotion 
by laying three stones of the foundation, but 
dared hope for nothing more. While he was 
engaged in the task, however, the pain suddenly 
left him. His cure was attributed to St. Anne, 
and a woman who had been bent double by 
some affliction for eight months began to invoke 
the saint as soon as she heard of the miracle, 
and was instantly as well able to stand on her 
feet and move her limbs as she had ever been. 

Miracle after miracle followed until the rude 
little hamlet was the talk of all New France. 
Pilgrims in great numbers began to resort to 
St. Anne de Beaupre, and many journeyed 
thither even in winter, travelling on the frozen 
river in their sleighs. Before the great annual 
feast day of the saint the Micmac Indians who 
came regularly from New Brunswick to trade. 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 211 

would be seen in their canoes paddling up 
stream to the shrine, where they built birch 
bark huts to shelter the pilgrims. The peculiar 
fame of the place appealed especially to the 
sea-faring folk, and it was a regular custom of 
vessels ascending the St. Lawrence to fire a 
broadside salute when passing. 

One legend of the place is that the English 
troops in waging war against the French once 
took possession of the village and burned all 
of it except the church. Three times they set 
fire to the building, but their efforts did not 
avail against the protecting spirit of good 
St. Anne. 

To the Canadian peasantry St. Anne de 
Beaupre became and still is as sacred as was 
Jerusalem to the Jews, and they resort to the 
shrine to be cured of all the various ills to which 
the flesh is heir. They believe that miracles are 
wrought here just as in Bible times. The blind 
are made to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to 
walk with ease, and strength and vigor are 
restored to those nigh to death. All this is done 
through the intercession of the good St. Anne, 
one of whose finger bones in a glass case is 
shown and venerated at the Basilica. There is 
also shown, among other treasures, a piece of 



212 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

rock from the grotto in which the virgin Mary- 
was born. 

The sanctity of devotion and the marvels of 
the miraculous permeate the whole atmosphere 
of St. Anne de Beaupre. But while many of the 
visitors have come to get nearer the Deity, who 
they think works miracles here which neither 
prayers nor piety would elicit elsewhere, others 
come to contemplate what seems to them merely 
a strange manifestation of human nature with 
possibly some occult significance which they 
cannot fathom. But whatever it is that brought 
them, the character of the place is calculated to 
stir the emotions and make the fervor of the 
devout more fervent and subdue the critical. 

In front of the church is a wide yard with 
lawn and shrubbery at the far side, but the 
nearer half is an expanse of pebbles that shift 
disagreeably under the feet. The church 
interior is rich in color, and its dim light, its 
kneeling worshippers and wandering sightseers, 
and its shaven monks with their brown robes and 
sandaled feet combine to make a strange picture. 
The visitors are of many nationalities, and for 
their edification the priests in charge of the church 
deliver sermons in German, Italian, Dutch and 
Spanish as well as in English and French. 




The sacred stairway 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 213 

Even unbelievers cannot but be impressed hy 
the crowded array of crutches, splints and other 
supports of a crippled body piled up eleven 
tiers high about the pillars at the rear of the great 
church — all left by their former owners whose 
infirmities were here cured. Amongst the 
various articles in this collection I noticed a 
bottle of nerve tonic, and there were several 
shoes with thick soles to make up for the de* 
ficiency in the length of a leg. Could it be possi- 
ble that St. Anne had made the shrunkea 
limb perfect ? Those whose sight had been, 
rejuvenated had left behind their glasses in great; 
numbers; but there were blind beggars on the 
pebbles outside rattling a few coins in their tin 
cups to attract the attention of visitors to their 
pitiable condition — could not St. Anne heal 
them, or was their occupation so profitable they 
did not wish to be healed ? One wall case in 
the church was filled with a decorative arrange- 
ment of pipes and snufF boxes left by tobacco 
users, who had determined under the inspiration 
of the place to be clean in this respect also. 

The most interesting of the neighboring- 
chapels is that of the Scala Sancta or Holy^ 
Stairs, a short distance up the hill. All the space 
in front is very thriftily cultivated, and at the 



214 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

time of my visit was full of onions, cabbages, 
carrots and other vegetables growing in neat 
rows. The stairs are a facsimile in wood of the 
famous twenty-eight steps of white marble at 
Rome, brought from Jerusalem in the fourth 
century and placed in the palace of the Sover- 
eign Pontiff. At Jerusalem they are supposed 
to have formed the staircase leading to the 
Pretorium, and therefore have been trodden six 
times by the footsteps of Christ. As at Rome, 
so at La Bonne Sainte Anne, these stairs are 
deeply venerated by all pilgrims. Each step 
contains a relic of the Holy Land, and the devout 
ascend them on their knees, the only way 
allowed, pausing on each to pray or meditate on 
the Passion of the Savior. From the top of the 
stairs descent is made by a flight of steps on 
either side to the level of the entrance. 

The scenery of the north shore of the St. 
Lawrence beyond Beaupre is very inspiring all 
the way to the Saguenay, and the land to the 
south is so dim and distant that the voyage along 
this rugged shore is much like skirting a sea coast. 
The constant succession of big, rude heights 
rarely affords any encouragement to human 
habitations. Yet here and there a small hamlet 
has established itself in a glen or clings at the 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 215 

foot of a precipitous bluff. It would seem as 
if the rocky ramparts along this shore could 
hardly have presented a wilder aspect to the 
early explorers, and the river itself is even now 
much of the time just as lonely as it was then, 
for often not a sail or a steam vessel is in sight. 

About thirty miles below Quebec is a little 
group of islands in mid-river, the largest of which 
is known as Crane's Island. On the highest 
point of this island there was formerly a fine 
chateau. Its builder was a gay courtier in the 
social circles of France in early manhood. He 
married a lady of great beauty, but of a tempera- 
ment that demanded immediate compliance 
with her slightest wishes, and she and her hus- 
band were far from being happy. One day she 
upbraided him for being too attentive to his 
acquaintances among the court beauties, and 
he proposed that they should put themselves 
beyond the power of arousing each other's 
jealous criticism in future by going to New 
France and building a home in some secluded 
spot beside the St. Lawrence. 

This wilderness exclusiveness suited the fancy 
of the lady, and they journeyed across the 
Atlantic. They selected Crane's Island for their 
dwelling-place, and soon the feathered denizens 



21 6 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

which had there held their right of domain for 
ages were frighted to other haunts by the hammer 
of civilization erecting the new house. 

At length Chateau Le Grande, as the owner 
called it, was ready for occupancy, and in this 
lonely retreat Monsieur and his wife at first 
lived very happily; for they both loved nature 
and found much to enjoy in their picturesque 
surroundings. The years passed on serenely 
until Madame became aware that her husband 
was often absent from home, and though he 
made liberal and plausible excuses she was not 
satisfied. It was his habit in these absences to 
go away across the river in a boat. One day 
when he had gone off thus Madame determined 
to follow him. As the sun was sinking behind 
the purple mountains on the western horizon 
she rowed across to the opposite shore. She had 
been told that the Indians were having a dance 
a few miles above, and thought she would find 
her truant husband among them. Sure enough, 
she presently came to a village in a forest glade 
where in the firelight the wild pantomimic dance 
was in progress, and in the midstof the dancers 
was her husband with a dusky Indian belle for 
his partner. Madame glided forward and 
confronted him. Over her shapely shoulders 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 217 

she wore a thick dark cloak, and the Indians 
fled at sight of her tall supernatural figure, 
thinking she was some evil spirit. Monsieur 
alone remained, and at a motion from his wife 
he followed her in crestfallen silence as she 
strode away into the darkness toward the river. 
They returned to their chateau. There she faced 
him imperiously and said, "When you brought 
me here from our old home across the ocean you 
made a vow to grant me any demand I might 
make, if you proved recreant to your pledge of 
fidelity. Are you ready to fulfil your promise ?" 

"Name it," said he. 

"You are never to leave this island again as 
long as you live," she responded. 

He accepted the verdict with bowed head, 
and afterward kept to the chateau and its imme- 
diate neighborhood. But the place had lost its 
former cheerfulness, and instead of gaiety there 
was soberness and melancholy. Finally Mon- 
sieur died and his lady sailed away to France, 
and left the chateau to crumble into ruin. 

Another island having more than ordinary 
interest is the Isle aux Coudres, so named by 
Cartier from the abundance of hazel trees 
growing there at the time of his voyage. When 
he arrived at the Isle he found the natives busy 



2i8 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

catching white whales. In later years the French 
took up this industry. The method employed 
was very simple. Saplings long enough to reach 
above high water were driven in a row into the 
shelving beach where they would be left out of 
water at low tide, each end of the row stopping 
with a half circle curve inward. The whales 
coming with the tide in pursuit of shoals of 
smelts and herrings that keep close to the shore, 
unwittingly swam into the trap set for them. 
When they sought to return they found them- 
selves confronted by this curved line of poles. 
In their efforts to escape they became more and 
more frightened. At the end of the swaying 
barrier the twist turned them back on their 
course, and they continued in a frenzy, swimming 
up and down till the ebbing tide left them high 
and dry, easy victims to the assaults of the fisher- 
men. As many as three hundred have been 
captured at the incoming of a single tide. The 
whales attain a length of fifteen or twenty feet, 
and when it is recalled that each yields an 
average of about seventy gallons of oil worth a 
dollar a gallon, and that the skin is very valuable 
for leather, the lucrativeness of the employment 
is evident, provided the whales are reasonably 
plentiful. 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 219 

One of the pleasures of voyaging on the river 
here is to watch the porpoise-like gambols of 
these whales, and it is of interest to know that 
the waters also abound in halibut, sturgeon, 
salmon and smaller fish. 

A neighboring indentation of the north shore 
is the Bay St. Paul. This Bay is said to have 
been the center of a fierce elemental war in 1663. 
For six months earthquakes were felt through- 
out Canada. Along the St. Lawrence meteors 
filled the air, which was dark with smoke and 
cinders, the grass withered, and the crops would 
not grow. New lakes were formed, the contour 
of the country was changed, and a hill slid down 
into the river and formed, an island. 

Another story of the instability of the earth 
in this region has to do with the village of Les 
Eboulements. This used to stand by the shore 
of the Bay, but the river made such encroach- 
ments that about 1830 it was removed to its 
present picturesque but exposed position on the 
shoulder of a great ridge a thousand feet above 
the water. This removal and the region's early 
earthquake experience have given rise to the 
romantic legend that the old village was en- 
gulfed by the St. Lawrence, and that its houses 



220 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

and church can sometimes be seen in the river 
-depths when the water is clear and unruffled. 

Somewhat farther down the river is that popu- 
lar resort for tourists, Murray Bay, the Newport 
of the St. Lawrence. On the east side of the 
Bay rises the lofty Cap aux Corbeaux, a name 
given to the peak by the early explorers because 
of the crows that hovered around its jagged 
cliffs. Great numbers of these birds continue 
even to this day to build their nests among the 
inaccessible crags, and the caribou browses on 
the wild slopes, and the bears fatten on the ber- 
ries of the dwarfed bushes clinging in the 
rocky crevices. 

The country folk affirm that the mountain is 
the abode of demons, and that in the days of 
old a giant held sway there. But the cross of 
Christ brought by white men drove this barbaric 
monster to take refuge in the solitudes of 
Labrador. He is still angry at having been 
forced from a throne he had held so long, and 
he frequently stamps his great feet wrathfully, 
and gives voice to threatening thunder tones, 
shaking the entire north shore with terrifying 
violence. Thus is explained the occasional 
earthquake shocks to which the region is 
subject. 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 221 

The scenery in and about Murray Bay is 
exceptionally wild and fine, the air is bracing 
and the fishing excellent. In the village can 
be had all the comforts of civilization; yet a few 
miles back from the river the country is an 
almost unexplored wilderness of rugged hill and 
forest — a hunter's paradise. 

The next place of importance is Tadousac at 
the mouth of the Saguenay. Below there no one 
goes on the north shore unless he is a salmon 
fisher, and the interior of the bordering country 
retains in the main its aboriginal savagery. The 
south shore has inhabitants, but makes no very 
strong appeal in a scenic way until the gulf is 
reached. Here, at the end of the Gaspe Penin- 
sula, is Gaspe Bay, twenty miles in length and 
ending in a basin large enough to shelter a thou- 
sand vessels. The Bay was early known to the 
French fishermen and explorers, and in 1534 
Carrier had erected a cross on the shore thirty 
feet high, decked it with his country's flag and 
proclaimed the region around to be a possession 
of the King of France. 

A little farther south, rising from the water 
just off a projection of the coast is Perce Rock, 
five hundred feet in length and about three 
hundred high. The top is nearly flat, and on 



Z22 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

all sides the cliffs descend perpendicularly to 
the sea. In spite of its massive proportions the 
pounding waves have sculptured an arch through 
the rock near the outer end, and this is what 
gives it its name. The strange and lonely rock 
is one to stir the fancy and it is no wonder that 
romantic and supernatural tales are told of the 
vicinity. One of these stories is of a maid of 
Brittany whose lover was among the earliest 
voyagers to come and seek his fortune in the 
wilderness valley of the St. Lawrence. The 
maiden would have accompanied him on his 
hazardous journey, but he thought it best she 
should remain behind till he sent for her. Soon 
after reaching Quebec he arranged for her com- 
ing, and wrote to have her cross the ocean to him 
on the next ship. She hastened to comply, but 
the vessel on which she sailed was captured by 
a Spanish corsair. She alone of all those on 
board was spared. Her beauty had so appealed 
to the pirate captain that he announced his 
intention to make her his wife. But she repelled 
his advances, and neither entreaty nor threat 
could move her. Finally, in revenge for her 
persistent refusal, he swore that she should never 
join her lover in Quebec, but that he would 
sail up the river past the town on the crag, and 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 223 

in sight of its inhabitants she should be put to 
death. 

This impending fate so preyed on her mind 
that when the vessel approached the mouth 
of the great river she eluded her watchers and 
sprang overboard. The efforts made to rescue 
her were in vain and the ship went on; but 
shortly afterward the lookout saw on ahead the 
form of a woman gliding along over the waves, 
her clinging garments dripping with the salt 
spray. He perceived too that she seemed to 
have some mysterious power over the vessel, 
which had been drawn from its course and was 
moving with increasing rapidity toward a vast 
cliff that rose from the sea a little off the 
wild coast. 

An alarm was sounded and every effort was 
made to turn the ship in another direction. 
But still it was drawn on in the wake of the 
strange feminine figure, and the frantic orders 
shouted by the captain and the frenzied labors 
of his crew availed nothing. An invincible power 
controlled the ship and it never paused till it 
collided with the great rock. That same instant 
the vessel, and its crew and all that was in it 
changed to stone and became a part of the rock 
itself There was a time when the petrified ship 



224 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

could be clearly seen on the face of the clifF. 
The waves have gradually effaced it, but a cer- 
tain point of rock still remains that is said to have 
been the vessel's bowsprit. The wraith of the 
unfortunate maiden continues to linger in the 
neighborhood of the rock, and those who have 
seen her declare she is very beautiful. It is 
generally believed, however, that when the last 
vestige of the ship is worn from the rock the 
lady will appear no more. She only shows 
herself at sunset — ^which was the time she leaped 
to her death, and at that hour no fisherman of 
the region cares to hazard his luck by dropping 
a line for fish. 

Another tragic spot is found at the opposite 
side of the wide mouth of the river, where is 
an island on which was wrecked an ill-fated 
British expedition that had set forth to conquer 
Canada in 171 1. There were nine ships of 
war and about sixty transports and other vessels, 
carrying in all some twelve thousand men. 
The fleet was in charge of Admiral Walker. Its 
greatest lack was pilots for the St. Lawrence, 
but before it reached the river a French vessel 
was captured commanded by a skipper named 
Paradis, who was an experienced old voyager 
and knew the river well. In consideration of a 



^ 




The Falls of Montmorency 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 225 

liberal bribe he consented to act as pilot, but 
he rather dampened the ardor of the admiral 
by his dismal accounts of the Canadian winter. 
The state of the commander's mind can be 
judged from this entry in his journal: 

"That which now chiefly took up my thoughts 
was contriving how to secure the ships if we 
got to Quebec; for the ice in the river freezing 
to the bottom would have utterly destroyed and 
bilged them as much as if they had been squeezed 
between rocks." 

However, it was still summer, and all went 
well till the evening of August twenty-second. 
They were then some distance above the great 
island of Anticosti where the river is seventy 
miles wide. There was a strong east wind with 
fog. Walker thought that he was not far froni 
the south shore, when in fact he was com- 
paratively near the north shore. At half-past 
ten he retired to his berth and was falling 
asleep, when an oflScer hastily entered and begged 
him to come on deck, saying there were breakers 
on all sides. The admiral scoffed at such a 
possibility and would not stir. Soon afterward 
the oflficer returned imploring him for Heaven's 
sake to come up and see for himself or all would 
be lost. At the same time the admiral heard a 



226 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

great noise and trampling, and he hastily put on 
his dressing-gown and slippers and hurried on 
deck. Just then the fog opened and the moon 
shone forth revealing a scene of fright and 
confusion. The breaking surf was in plain 
sight, but by making all sail the ship succeeded 
in beating to windward and avoiding the 
danger. Other vessels of the fleet were not so 
fortunate and all night there was firing of cannon 
and showing of lights indicating the utmost 
distress. *Tt was lamentable to hear the 
shrieks of the drowning, departing souls," 
writes one of the survivors. Eight transports, 
one storeship and one sutler's sloop were dashed 
to pieces, and nearly a thousand men perished. 
After the men who had succeeded in reaching 
shore had been rescued it was decided that the 
expedition should be abandoned, though it 
was not by any means hopelessly crippled. But 
the admiral seems to have been possessed by a 
sort of nightmare with regard to the Canadian 
climate. He even saw cause for gratitude in his 
own mishaps; because, had he arrived safe at 
Quebec, his provisions would soon have been 
consumed, and he and all his men would have 
perished of cold and hunger. 'T must confess," 
he says in his journal, "the contemplation of 



From Cape Diamond to the Gulf 227 

this strikes me with horror; for how dismal 
must it have been to have beheld the seas and 
earth locked up by adamantine frosts and swollen 
with high mountains of snow, in a barren and 
uncultivated region; great numbers of brave 
men famishing with hunger and drawing lots 
who should die first to feed the rest." 

The expedition had aroused great anxiety at 
Quebec and this continued until the nineteenth 
of October when word came of the disaster. 
Three Frenchmen and one Indian sent to watch 
for the English fleet had descended the St. 
Lawrence in a canoe and discovered the wrecks 
at Egg Island. They told how the shore was 
strewn with hundreds of human bodies, besides 
dead horses, sheep, dogs and hens, casks, 
cables, anchors, planks, shovels and much else. 

This "miracle" of deliverance was interpreted 
at Quebec to show "God's love for Canada, 
which of all these countries, is the only one 
that professes the true religion." 

Amazing stories circulated concerning the 
English losses. It was said that three thousand 
of "these wretches" died after reaching land in 
addition to the multitude that was drowned, 
and even this did not satisfy divine justice, for 
God blew up one of the ships by lightning during 



228 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

the storm. Vessels sent to gather up the spoils 
came back laden **with marvellous treasure, 
including rich clothing, plate, silver-hiked 
swords and the like," and reported that though 
the autumn tides had swept away many of the 
corpses, more than two thousand still lay on the 
rocks, in attitudes of despair." 

How tragic was the early history of the river! 
But now it is a stream of commerce and pleasure, 
in most ways wholly beneficent; and for stories 
of human woe one has to delve into the shadowy 
past. May the time never come when this will 
be otherwise! 




CO 



XII 

THE BEAUTIFUL SAGUENAY 

COMMERCIALLY the New World yielded 
little to the French for many years, except 
to the fisherman; but the wilderness had its 
treasures as well as the ocean, and it needed only 
the enticement of a few knives, beads and trinkets 
to induce the Indians to part with the spoils of 
their winter hunting. Gradually the fishermen 
abandoned their old vocation for the more 
lucrative trade in bear and beaver skins. They 
built rude huts at convenient places along the 
waterways, abused the Indians and quarrelled 
with each other. One of their trading-posts was 
established in 1598 at Tadousac where the Sague- 
nay joins the St. Lawrence. A cluster of wooden 
cabins was built amid the wild rocky heights 
clad with pines, firs and birches, and sixteen 
men were left to guard the expected harvest of 
furs. Before the winter was over several of the 
men had died, and the rest scattered through 
the woods, living on the charity of the Indians, 
A second and a third attempt was made to estab- 



230 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

lish a trading-post at Tadousac, and more lives 
wasted. 

In 1608 the French king granted a nobleman 
of his court named De Monts a monopoly of the 
St. Lawrence fur trade for one year, and a vessel 
was dispatched to Tadousac. When it arrived, 
Pontgrave, the commander, found a Basque 
ship there ahead of him. A brisk trade was 
already in progress with the Indians, and a little 
back from the cove that served as a harbor, 
were the lodges of the Indian camp — stacks of 
poles covered with birch bark. Pontgrave dis- 
played the royal letters, which gave De Monts 
the exclusive trading rights, and ordered the 
Basques to cease their traffic. 

But the latter proved refractory and fired on 
Pontgrave with cannon and musketry, wound- 
ing him and two of his men and killing a third. 
They then boarded his vessel and carried off 
his guns and ammunition, with a promise to 
restore them when they finished trading and 
were ready to return home. Champlain in 
another vessel representing the De Monts' 
interest arrived a few days later, and the 
Basques, though strong enough to fight with 
reasonable chance of success, concluded to come 
to terms. A treaty of peace was therefore drawn 



The Beautiful Saguenay 231 

up and signed, and they betook themselves to 
catching whales, while Pontgrave busied him- 
self in transferring to the hold of his ship such 
furs as he could secure. The Indians with whom 
he trafficked were Algonquins, gatherers of the 
skins of the moose, caribou and bear, and of the 
beaver, martin, otter, fox, wildcat and lynx. 
They served, too, as intermediate traders be- 
tween the French and the roving bands who 
inhabited the dreary stretch of forest between 
the headwaters of the Saguenay and Hudson's 
Bay. In their light canoes the fur-seekers 
penetrated the remotest wilds and then returning 
by the devious waterways descended to the 
mart at Tadousac. 

Several Recollect friars came to the New 
World in 16 17 to look after the spiritual welfare 
of the traders and Indians. To one of these 
named Dolbeau, was assigned the vast wilder- 
ness around and to the north of the Saguenay, 
with its wandering tribes of Montagnais. Full 
of zeal he started the next winter to follow the 
roving hordes to their frozen hunting-grounds. 
But he was not robust, and his eyes were weak. 
Lodged in a hut of birch bark that was full of 
dogs, fleas and stench, he at length succumbed 
to the smoke which had well-nigh blinded him. 



232 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

After debating the matter within himself he 
decided that God did not require of him the 
sacrifice of his sight, and went to Quebec. Yet 
in the spring he returned and journeyed in his 
territory so far that he came in contact with 
outlying bands of Esquimaux. 

The previous summer mass was said for the 
first time at Tadousac by another priest of the 
order. The ceremony took place in a chapel 
built of branches, and two sailors stood beside 
the priest waving green boughs to drive off the 
mosquitoes. 

Tadousac was the center of the Canadian fur 
trade for many years; but as the fur-bearing 
animals disappeared, so did the commercial and 
political glory of the village at the mouth of the 
Saguenay. The appeal of the region up the 
river was not very strong to settlers, and until 
about 1840 it continued to be a wilderness, 
practically unknown except to the few hunters 
who penetrated its fastnesses. Since then its 
forest resources have attracted capital, the sec- 
tions adapted to farming have been developed, 
and various thriving towns have sprung into 
being. It is no longer a region of isolated trad- 
ing-posts. As for Tadousac, that is now a quiet 
hamlet, its prosperity less dependent on com- 




Chicoutimi 



The Beautiful Siaguenay 233 

mcrce than on its noble scenic surroundings. 
It has the distinction of being the first French 
station on the St. Lawrence from which evolved 
a permanent town; and there is still standing 
in the village a little church which was the earliest 
built in Canada. However, the most dominant 
feature of the place at present is a great wide- 
spreading wooden hotel for summer vacationists. 
The vicinity is famous for its fishing which 
offers a variety extending from the Tommy cod 
for the children to the river, lake, and brook trout 
and salmon that delight the most exacting angler. 
Without doubt the Saguenay trip is one of 
the greatest attractions that the St. Lawrence 
Valley has to offer. It begins at Quebec and 
occupies two days. The start is made down 
the St. Lawrence in the early morning, and, 
touching along at the north shore villages, you 
reach Tadousac in the evening and go up the 
Saguenay at night. On my trip up the latter 
stream the deep starlit sky was illumined by 
faint weird streaks and bands of the aurora, and 
I sat long on deck watching this electric display 
and the black mountains that guarded the 
shores. At dawn the next day we were pushing 
along intermittently up the river waiting on the 
pleasure of a fog that was slowly drifting ahead 



234 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

of us. So we were much behind our schedule 
in arriving at Chicoutimi, the head of steamboat 
navigation. This place is the great lumber-yard 
of the north, to which the timber is brought 
down chiefly by the rapid upper Saguenay. The 
name of the town is an Indian word that means 
"Up here it is deep." But great depth of water 
is not confined to Chicoutimi*s immediate vicinity 
for the river is as near bottomless as it well could 
be all the way from there to the St. Lawrence. 

An interesting stream with the same name 
as the town joins the Saguenay close by. It 
makes a descent of about five hundred feet in 
seventeen miles. Among the numerous carry- 
ing-places beside this turbulent river is one 
known as Portage de V Enfant, so called in com- 
memoration of the remarkable escape of an 
Indian child that was carried over the neigh- 
boring falls. These falls are fifty feet high, yet 
the child was rescued uninjured. 

The source of the Saguenay is Lake St. John, 
into which drains a vast network of lesser streams 
that abound with beautiful waterfalls. The 
finest of these cataracts is probably the Oui- 
atchouan Falls which makes a foaming descent 
of more than three hundred feet down a steep 
ledge. All this section of country is thickly 



The Beautiful Saguenay 235 

studded with lakes, and there is the best of 
fishing, and much large game such as deer, 
bear, moose and the wapiti. Perhaps nowhere 
else in the vast basin of the St. Lawrence will the 
sportsman and the lover of the grand and beau- 
tiful in nature find better reward for their toil. 

A good deal of geological interest attaches to 
the rock formation of the region; for the 
Laurentide range forms the backbone of the 
oldest mountain chain on the globe. In the 
glacial period of our planet's history, a cold 
salt sea similar to that between Labrador and 
Greenland covered a great part of this Lauren- 
tian country to the depth of hundreds of feet. 

There is a peculiar geological interest also in 
the individuality of the Saguenay. The stream 
occupies a tremendous chasm where occurred 
a fault in the ancient Archaean rock. Here a 
glacier made for itself a deeply eroded bed, 
and when the ice melted, the sea filled the vast 
defile. At its mouth the river is at least six 
hundred feet deeper than the St. Lawrence, 
and the scenery along its lower course, for some 
sixty miles is magnificent. The tides run very 
strong in this wide channel, and sometimes 
attain a height of eighteen feet. 



236 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

It is the custom of the steamboat to wait at 
Chicoutimi till advantage can be taken of the 
€bb flow, and on my trip we did not start until 
nearly noon. For a long time we went on amid 
scenery that was in no wise remarkably striking. 
But at length the boat rounded Gape West and 
proceeded to the head of Ha! Ha! Bay, a charm- 
ing sheet of water about two miles wide and 
seven long. Its name is supposed to be derived 
from the laughing exclamations of the early 
French explorers, who sailed up the Bay under 
the impression that they were following the 
main channel of the river, and soon found 
farther progress barred. At the head of the 
Bay is the picturesque village of St. Alphonse; 
and the sight of it was the more welcome because 
usually on this river trip we had not a single 
habitation in view. 

As we continued southward the bordering 
hills were higher, and at the waterside was a 
constant succession of precipices of solemn and 
impressive grandeur, scantily enlivened by 
vegetation. The scenery culminates at Capes 
Trinity and Eternity. These twin promontories 
soar upward in almost perpendicular cliffs from 
the water's edge, and between them a little bay 
opens inland. Cape Trinity gets its name from 



The Beautiful Saguenay 237 

the fact that it lifts its great mass in three 
successive heights. This makes it suggestive of 
the steps of a mighty flight of stairs, and each 
step is about six hundred feet high making a 
total of nearly two thousand feet. It is of 
interest also to know that the water at the base 
of the capes is said to be as deep as they are high. 
These stupendous cliffs dwarf everything else of 
this nature to be found in the eastern portion of 
the continent, and the bald eagle builds its nest in 
the niches of the precipices secure from intrusion. 
Immense blocks of the rock have fallen out, leav- 
ing areas of shadow and clinging overhanging 
masses that are a terror and a fascination to the 
eye. Some years ago there was a great fall of rock 
just as the steamer which loiters here for the 
pleasure of the tourists had passed from under 
and blown its whistle to arouse the echoes. 
**The echo came back and with it a part of 
the mountain that astonished more than it 
delighted the lookers-on." 

John Burroughs, in relating his impressions 
of Cape Eternity, says that when the vessel was 
sailing close around the base of the precipice 
"One of the boys of the steamer brought to the 
forward deck his hands full of stones that the 
curious ones among the passengers might try 



238 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

how easy is was to throw one ashore. 'Any 
girl ought to do it/ I said to myself. 

"Seizing a stone, I cast it with vigor and 
confidence, and as much expected to see it 
smite the rock as I expected to live. *It is a 
good while getting there,' I mused, as I watched 
its course. Down, down it went — * It will ring 
on the granite in half a breath.' No, down into 
the water, a little more than halfway! 'Has my 
arm lost its cunning?' I said, and tried again 
and again, but with like result. The eye was 
completely at fault. There was a new standard 
of size before it to which it failed to adjust 
itself. The rock is so enormous and towers so 
above you that you get the impression it is much 
nearer than it actually is. There is an aston- 
ishing discrepancy between what the eye reports 
and what the hand finds out." 

Bayard Taylor has spoken of the Saguenay 
as the "River of Death," and there has been an 
inclination to describe it as silent and gloomy, 
and so narrow and environed by dark cliflFs 
that the sunshine rarely penetrates to its sombre 
channel, and no breeze can reach its unruffled 
waters. As a matter of fact it is usually a mile 
or more broad and the light of heaven and the 
winds play over it as they do over other streams. 



The Beautiful Saguenay 239 

Nor are you inclined to melancholy as you sail 
its waters and view the changing scene, unless 
you have brought your melancholy with you. 

The bordering region, however, with its 
stony mountains bulwarking the river offers 
little encouragement to home seekers or even 
for grazing. Many of the heights have been 
swept by fire recently enough to bear witness 
to the fact by their bristling of charred tree- 
trunks still standing, and their lack of vegetation. 
Much of the soil has been burned, or has been 
washed away after losing the protection of the 
shade and fibrous roots of the forest. The flinty 
slopes indeed seem never likely to support a 
fine woodland in the future. Ordinarily the 
devastation was begun by the lumberman and 
fire completed the ruin of the once noble forest 
along the Saguenay. Wherever the white man 
goes into the wilderness the havoc of fire seems 
to go with him. This was illustrated by what 
was told me of the building of the railway from 
Quebec to Lake St. John. It was a great expense^ 
the rocks on the route were so hard; yet it cost 
the public far more than the outlay of the railway 
company; for the fires carelessly allowed to 
escape by the workmen burned millions of dollars 
worth of forest. 



XIII 

THE ST. LAWRENCE IN WINTER 

ABOVE Quebec the river is icebound from 
early December until April. Below Que- 
bec there is ice in plenty, too; but it does not 
freeze hard and fast from shore to shore. With 
the ebb and flow of every tide the broken masses 
go surging now down, now up; and while navi- 
gation on the lower river is not impossible, only 
one or two government boats continue active. 
All other traffic is abandoned, and the ocean- 
going vessels do not resume their trips much 
before the first of May; for there is a long after- 
math of winter in this great waterway. The 
river's quieter portions, and the various streams 
and broad lakes that are tributary to it freeze to 
a great thickness. The ice breaks up at different 
times in different localities, so that the series of 
"ice-shoves" the St. Lawrence experiences 
extends over several weeks. As the ice crowds 
along down the channel it jams and piles up 
and often forms bergs of enormous size. At no 
time is the aspect of the river wilder. 




is 






The St. Lawrence in Winter 241 

I chose to make a pilgrimage to this northern 
waterway in February, because I had a fancy 
that then I would find winter most impressive — 
that all the accumulated snows of the preceding 
months would be on view, and that frost and 
keen winds would be as rampant as they are in 
the bitterest days of the season in Boston or 
New York. But the valley of the St. Lawrence 
has not, after all, a climate so radically different 
from that of our adjacent states as we are in- 
clined to imagine. Spells of soft weather in 
February are almost a certainty, and even a 
January thaw is looked for with a good deal of 
confidence. But the natives all afiirm that 
winter does not relax its grip for good until 
March seventeenth. I at first wondered why 
they named this date with such exactness and 
assurance. When I asked for a reason they 
mentioned that the seventeenth was St. Patrick's 
Day. So much warmth is developed on the 
occasion that not even a Canadian winter can 
withstand it. 

The weather at Montreal at the time of my 
visit was decidedly mild. There had been a day 
of rain immediately before which had carried 
off a good deal of the snow, yet all the vehicles 
drawn by horses were still on runners. Much 



242 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

of the natural accumulations of snow on the 
chief business streets had been previously 
carted off, and the thaw had taken most of the 
rest. What remained had been compacted by 
travel into ice, but it was so dirty that trafl&c 
moved very laboriously. Many a load got 
stranded on the bare tracks of the car lines, and 
if the struggle to get off seemed at all doubtful 
a crowd would gather to watch the solving of the 
problem. The spectacle was especially fascinat- 
ing if a horse attached to a sled showed its dis- 
approval of the situation by kicking. 

Except on the main thoroughfares the snow 
continued to be very plentiful, and there were 
amazing heaps along the gutters, and in the 
yards of residences, and in nooks about the 
buildings. Some of the churches were half 
buried in the masses that had slid down from 
the roofs. One effect of the warm spell was to 
bring out the frost in great white patches on the 
thick walls of the houses of worship and other 
stone structures. Perhaps the most interesting 
glimpses of the winter city were to be had by 
going through the occasional archways that give 
access from the business streets to little courts 
and areas in the rear. The snow heaps there 



The St. Lawrence in Winter 243 

on earth and galleries and huddled roofs were 
sure to be exceedingly picturesque. 

I early sought the waterside to see how winter 
had changed the stream opposite the city. Not 
an atom of its warm weather vivacity remained. 
It was a vast vacancy of snowy ice, except for 
dark glades of rippling water where the current 
was swiftest. The wharves which are so busy 
in summer were deserted by all shipping and 
were cleared of much of their ordinary fixtures 
to give free sweep to the ice-shoves. Yet many 
teams were coming and going along shore, some 
bringing freight to or from the cars on the rail- 
road that skirts the wharves, others getting 
goods from the great warehouses on the piers; 
and there was a long procession of little one- 
horse sledges that were carrying surplus snow 
from the town to dump it by the river borders. 

A few weeks previous there had been a ten- 
days* ice carnival in the city, and an ice palace 
had been built on the upland at the foot of the 
bluff of Mount Royal. The Montreal ice 
palace is famed all over America, and pictures of 
it appear in the papers everywhere. It is some- 
thing so unique and the idea of celebrating the 
pleasures of winter so charms the fancy that 
there is a widespread desire to see the glittering 



244 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

structure. Nevertheless the number of visitors 
it actually draws from the States is compara- 
tively small. The drift of humanity in winter is 
toward a warmer climate, and people shrink 
from encountering the rigors of a more northerly 
section than that to which they are accustomed, 
even though they acknowledge theoretically 
that the steady, dry cold usually characteristic 
of the St. Lawrence valley in winter is invigorat- 
ing, healthful and pleasurable. 

The ice palace as a winter feature of Mon- 
treal has not proved a success financially, and 
there is some doubt of its being erected in future. 
Its crystal walls and aspiring towers and turrets 
cover a considerable area, and both the size and 
the castle-like, medieval architecture are im- 
pressive; but the cost of construction is too great 
for the patronage. The blocks of ice used are 
enormous and weigh about five hundred pounds 
each. They are handled with derricks, and are 
cemented together with a mixture of snow and 
water. At night the building is lighted by 
electricity, and on certain special occasions 
there are displays of fireworks, and a battle 
takes place between a storming party and 
defenders. 




The road up Mount Royal 



The St. Lawrence in Winter 245 

The people of Montreal are by no means 
unanimous in approving of the palace. Some 
object to it because they think it advertises the 
frigidity of the region, and they fear possible 
visitors will be repelled rather than attracted. 
They themselves make a brave claim that their 
winter is not disturbingly severe or disagreeable, 
and I have no doubt that in many ways they en- 
joy it. But I am persuaded from chance re- 
marks made to me that they find it rather tedious 
and at times decidedly harsher than they relish. 
For instance, one lady told me how a stranger 
stopped her on the street with the remark: 
"Excuse me, but your nose is frozen.*' "And 
it was," she said, "but I was warned in time sa 
that little harm was done." 

The city has numerous covered skating rinks 
in which ice sports are enjoyed to perfection all 
winter. Both sexes resort to these rinks, and the 
fancy dress carnivals afford a very attractive 
spectacle. Of the various games played on 
the ice hockey is the favorite, and there is much 
rivalry between the clubs of the different cities. 
A well-contested match is a sight that is ex- 
tremely graceful and interesting. Skating is 
perhaps the amusement that has the most 
devotees, but tobogganing and snowshoeing 



246 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

arc also very popular. Montreal boasts of about 
twenty snowshoe clubs, and as each club has 
its distinctive uniform of bright-colored blanket, 
coat, and cowl, a procession of snowshoers on a 
tramp presents a very gay and enlivening 
appearance. 

Mount Royal is the winter playground of the 
people. They can take advantage of the splen- 
did sleighing on the long, easy grade of the road 
that winds around the height through the 
woods; or they can put on snowshoes and go 
climbing through the hollows and over the ridges 
and along the bypaths; or they can resort to 
the magnificent toboggan slide, well up toward 
the summit on the gentle southern slope. One 
may grant that in the city itself the snow and 
cold constitute something of a nuisance, but 
there is no question that on Mount Royal the 
crystalline air and the clean omnipresent mantle 
of the snow, and the joy and warmth of activity 
and lively sport are wholly delightful. 

To see the ideal St. Lawrence winter, how- 
ever, the traveller must visit Quebec. It is 
farther north than Montreal, is more steadily 
cold, and gets more deeply buried in snow. 
The weather had taken a chill turn while I was 
on my way thither, and when I arrived a bleak 




Snoxvhound 



The St. Lawrence in Winter 247 

wind was blowing that almost took me oflF my 
feet in the exposed places. But the town was 
really adorable, it looked so genuinely yet 
snugly cold. Everywhere was frost and snow — 
the place was enveloped in white, and even the 
grim cliffs and battlements were half hidden. 
There was beautiful sleighing, and the vehicles 
were generally fascinating in their quaintness. 
They were low, clumsy and heavy, and the 
runners were made out of planks set on edge and 
gracefully curved at the front and shod with 
iron. The milk carts and shopkeepers' convey- 
ances usually had a step at the back where the 
driver stood. 

For pleasure riding the favorite sleigh is what 
is called a "cariole." It is of the same type that 
I have described and has sides rather more than 
knee high. Wraps and fur robes are supplied 
in abundance, and the finest robe in the outfit 
hangs loosely over the back, giving the cariole 
a jaunty air of warmth and luxuriousness that is 
quite enticing. 

The horses of the town are sure-footed beasts, 
and I could not but be astonished at the alacrity 
with which they jogged down the steep descents, 
often making a long slide at every footstep. I 
think the people must be sure-footed, too; for 



248 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

the walks were covered with ice, and it appar- 
ently was not considered necessary to sprinkle 
them with ashes or sand. In places, however, 
rude steps had been cut in the ice on the steeper 
walks, and I noticed that if the grade and 
slipperiness were excessive the pedestrians often 
resorted to the streets. 

Evidently the townsfolk on the whole enjoyed 
the winter; for I saw no shivering discomfort, 
but much of brisk energy. Everyone seemed to 
be prepared for the cold and ready to withstand 
its utmost rigors. That its sharpness was often 
superlative was attested by the common habit of 
wearing a fur hat, and very likely a fur coat, or 
at least a generous fur collar. 

There were marvellous accumulations of 
snow where it had drifted or been shovelled 
into heaps, and some of the narrower streets 
would probably have been filled to the tops of 
the buildings that lined them, had the snow 
not been carted off. That curious little street, 
Sous le Cap, was a weird sight, in spite of all 
the clearing that had been done. Snow was 
clinging everywhere on roofs, stairways and 
rocks, and it piled up in the street so that it 
was impossible to keep it entirely out of the 
adjacent houses. 



The St. Lawrence in Winter 249 

The rigor of winter was even more apparent 
when I climbed to the citadel on the exposed 
summit of the bluff. The fortress was half 
buried, and the approach to it was guarded 
against the drifts by a long snowshed. Down 
below, the river was a mass of broken ice, and 
the water showed only in occasional streaks and 
patches. In the quiet intervals between the 
tides the ice is apt to freeze into an almost con- 
tinuous mass, but when the current is strong it 
is broken up again and swept up or down the 
stream, whichever way the tide is setting. 

Two stout ferryboats ply back and forth 
across the river and do much to keep the ice 
moving. They follow the open lanes when they 
can, yet do not hesitate to butt into the floes 
and crunch along through them. In the wild 
winter storms the prevailing wind crowds the 
ice against the Quebec shore, and then the 
ferryboats may be an hour or more in crossing. 
Ordinarily, no trips are made between midnight 
and six in the morning; but when the weather 
is cold a sharp watch is kept, and if the ice 
shows signs of forming a permanent bridge the 
boats start out to break it up. Only once in 
the last twenty years has the river here been 
icebound. To quote the words of my informant: 



250 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

"The ice caught in January and formed a 
bridge fifteen miles long that lasted the rest of the 
winter. We walked, skated and drove all around 
on it, and held carnivals out in mid-river." 

Two or three important railroads have their 
Quebec terminal on the south shore of the river, 
and such a blockade is so serious a matter that 
every effort is made to keep the ice moving. 
The portion of the river that flows north of 
the Isle of Orleans, however, is frozen over and 
people drive back and forth between the main- 
land and the island at various places for months. 

The aspect of Quebec was satisfactorily 
wintry, but I wanted also to see the outlying 
country, so I journeyed down the river to one of 
the rural villages, and trudged for many miles 
along the drifted roadways. It was storming 
and the wind drove the prickling sleet against 
my face, and whirled it over the fields to pile it up 
in the lee of the hills or other obstructions. 
The snow lay even with the tops of the fences. 
Never before had I seen a region so buried; and 
yet I was told there was not half as much snow 
this winter as usual, and that the recent thaw 
had settled it about three feet. 

After each storm it is customary to go over the 
road with a scraper that smooths the snow off, and 




■"^1 







.._.J 



The St. Lawrence in Winter 251 

then with a roller that packs it down hard. The 
hardened trail is wide enough to allow teams to 
pass each other, but woe betide the driver who 
gets oflF the rolled space. To prevent such stray- 
ing the more doubtful portions of the road are 
marked with spruce saplings thrust in at inter- 
vals along the hardened portion. 

It seemed as if the snow would linger till mid- 
summer, but the spring rains and warm winds 
that sweep through the valley carry it off like 
magic. As soon as it softens travel is practically 
impossible, for the horses at every footstep sink 
down almost out of sight. Most people then 
either wait for a freeze, or, if the season is too 
far advanced to expect such hardening, the men 
get out with shovels and open a rough way 
through the worst places. 

The storm I encountered did not appear to de- 
ter the people from going about their work. 
They were sawing wood in their dooryards, 
piling sleds with pulpwood by the roadside, and 
driving loads to the village. The homes I passed 
were not very attractive. As a rule the houses 
were small and their architecture was preten- 
tious and tawdry. There was a fatal desire to 
make a show, especially at the front, which was 
often painted to imitate stone or brick and had 



252 The Picturesque St. Lawrence 

a very ornamental door and window-casings. 
It mattered not if the rest of the structure was 
commonplace and even shabby, if only that 
deceptive front, which deceived nobody, was 
sufficiently palatial. The only quiet, simple 
and beautiful dwellings were the occasional 
stone houses that date far back into the past, 
and which most likely are despised by the local 
public for their lack of attractiveness. The 
surroundings of the houses were usually quite 
devoid of the saving touch of grace that shelter- 
ing trees would have lent them, and this bleak- 
ness of aspect is the more regretable because, 
it is unnecessary. 

I did not have much luck in chatting with the 
people I met, for they could rarely speak any- 
thing but French. Most of them are poor, and 
— poor or rich — they are economical by habit 
and "live on the smell of an oil rag," as one 
valley man informed me. 

They probably have the most attenuated 
farms to be found on the face of the earth. 
Some of the strips are hardly wider than the 
dwellings that stand on them; but I could see 
fences that marked the boundary lines sweeping 
far away up the slope to a fringe of spruce in the 
distance, and extending in the other direction 



The St. Lawrence in Winter 253 

down the steep hill and across the lowland to 
the river. 

That the deep snows and the cold and the 
fierce storms of the winter must have been 
frightful to the early explorers in a savage wil- 
derness, I could easily comprehend; but now, 
with assurance of food and shelter, the season's 
ugly aspect is gone, and it offers to the traveller 
much that is delightful. "No matter how cold 
it is," said one Canadian, "I can work every 
day, and I feel in the mood for working, too. 
That's more than the people can say who live 
in warmer regions where they don't have a good 
snappy winter. I wouldn't want to exchange 
our climate for any other; and yet, I tell you, it 
looks good in the spring when the frost weakens 
its grip and the snow melts and we begin to see 
the brown of the fields." 

Certainly the St. Lawrence is one of the noblest 
and most interesting of our great waterways, 
and a visit to it is well repaid in either summer 
or winter. Best of all see it at both seasons, for 
only so can you feel that you have a thorough 
knowledge of its charms. 



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